Wind Farms (Mid-Wales)

Roger Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. I will come to the role of TAN 8 and the Assembly Government in the last part of my speech, because it is key. It might seem that I am focusing overly on the position of the National Assembly for Wales, but it is crucial. Decisions will be taken in a number of places, but against the policy background of TAN 8.

The carbon impact of the development can never be compensated for by any possible carbon benefit. There is the cost of importing materials over such a large distance and over a road network that is totally unsuitable for such traffic; huge investment will be necessary just to get them to the wind farms that are to be built. There are also other environmental costs, such as the destruction of the peat bogs and much else.

In the middle of my constituency, there is a wind farm with 103 turbines, which have been there for 20 years and which are now to be taken down and replaced with new, larger turbines. However, the huge concrete pads on which the redundant turbines are built will not be removed; the turbines will be removed, but these huge lumps of concrete will stay in the ground. There will be 103 of them, together with 40-odd for the turbines that are taking the place of the old ones, and I suppose there will be another 50 when another wind farm comes along on the same site in 15 years. The destruction over a long period is almost impossible to calculate.

Even worse is the seemingly deliberate conflation of the terms “onshore wind” and “renewable energy”, which has done huge damage to public support for the latter. Most people I know are, or at least were, proud to describe themselves as being supportive of renewable energy, but the obsession with onshore wind has undermined public support for renewable energy. Occasionally—actually, this has happened only once since the scale of the proposals became known—I have heard, or rather have heard of, words of support for turbines and pylons, but those words totally dismissed all that those of us who have chosen to stay in the area greatly value. After a recent recording session for a live Welsh TV programme, a friend complained that 90% of the mid-Wales uplands would be covered in wind turbines. A representative of a local environment organisation shouted out, “What about covering the other 10% as well?” I cannot verify that conversation with precision, but the drift is clear. Such people have no absolutely idea what damage they are doing to the cause they purport to support.

There is also the opportunity cost. The massive public subsidy that onshore wind is swallowing up is just as damaging to the future of renewable energy, which will be crucial to our energy supply over the next decades. So much more could have been done to advance the wider cause of renewable energy. Biomass potentially has a great future in mid-Wales, and I could also mention microgeneration, marine power—wave and tidal power—offshore wind and solar photovoltaics, as well as several other sources of power generation that I cannot immediately recall. Indeed, there are probably several others I have never heard of. However, those possible sources of future renewable energy are not being developed because of an obsession with onshore wind. When we have turbines on the hills, politicians can point at them and say, “We did that,” but all they have done is wreak serious damage on the land that the people of mid-Wales think of as their own. Thousands of pounds have been poured into onshore wind, restricting the development of forms of renewable energy that the public would actually welcome.

In the last part of my speech, I want to look at how we reached today’s position; often, we need to look back to decide how best to move forward. I was the chairman of the local planning authority in Montgomeryshire through the 1980s, and onshore wind farms were novel at the time. However, it quickly became clear that they were hugely divisive, and most of us will have had experience of how divisive they can be, splitting communities and even families. Even at the time, I was never convinced that onshore wind was a worthwhile technology, but I could see that it was an important new technology with possibilities and that research was needed.

Several wind farms were developed in Montgomeryshire —one was the biggest in Europe when it was built—and there are many wind farms there now. Although they had a localised impact, I did not think that they were a threat to the entire region, even though some quite visionary people warned me that we were opening the door to the sort of thing that eventually happened. The Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, of which I was the president for three years before I was elected to this place, was particularly vociferous, and it deserves congratulations on the position that it took from an early stage. Even though I was not convinced of the value of onshore wind farms at the time, my general attitude, and that of most of the population, was that mid-Wales was a large and beautiful place that could accommodate some new wind farms.

That was my attitude until 2005, and it was most people’s attitude until perhaps two months ago. One fateful day in 2005, however, the Assembly Government published a statement updating TAN 8, which offered local planning authorities guidance on how to deal with planning applications. I was horrified by what it meant, and those who discussed it over a quite a long period were equally horrified. Today, the entire population is horrified.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman back after his operation. It is good to see that he is vertical, even if he needs a bit of assistance. I opposed TAN 8 and its implementation. One of my critical concerns was that, unlike most planning policies, it was not open to a public inquiry; there was only consultation in the Assembly, which was judge and jury in this matter. It is quite exceptional for a planning policy to be implemented in that way, without the opportunity for a public inquiry.

[Glyn Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point. There was not even consultation in the National Assembly for Wales; the governing party of the day just issued a statement, with no scope for discussion or consultation—we had to take it or leave it. I stood up and immediately opposed the guidance, but even then, I did not quite realise the scale of what it meant for the future of rural Wales.

I feel a bit guilty: having spent eight years as a Member of the National Assembly, I am hugely supportive of it, but I have been critical this morning. I want to explain why. If we are to find a way to challenge the plans, we must identify the source—it is no good just shouting at everybody—and look at how the applications will be dealt with. The issue of the cable that will run from near the middle of my constituency to the middle of Shropshire will actually be decided on here, in Westminster. It will go through the Infrastructure Planning Commission process, and probably through the processes of its successor. Decisions on the larger wind farms—those of more than 50 MW—will also be taken here. The decision on a 20-acre electricity substation, which might be built within almost half a mile of a village and thus devalue it overnight, will be taken by the local planning authority in Powys. The local authority will also make decisions on the smaller wind farms of up to 50 MW, but with appeals to the National Assembly for Wales.

All those decisions will be taken against the background of TAN 8, because any inspector looking at how to decide on a proposal put before them will do so against that planning background. That is why the only possible way of saving mid-Wales from the desecration to which it is sentenced by TAN 8 is to take a more sympathetic look in some way—through a redrafting, an understanding, or a proper discussion in the National Assembly for Wales—at whether it is the right policy, and whether it is framed as it should be. I know perfectly well that at the end of the day, the state, in its various forms, will have its way. We live in a civilised country where debate and minorities are trampled on and local opinion is completely ignored. That may happen in this case, but I find it scarcely believable that it can.

Some people believe that we had gone too far before everybody understood what had happened, and I think that part of the strategy was to make certain that people did not understand what was happening. Even now, the way in which proposals have been presented is designed to split the community. There is a choice of two substations and two or three lines, and that looks like a deliberate attempt to turn one part of the constituency of mid-Wales against another, but the people of mid-Wales have not been fooled; they have stuck together absolutely. If the plans go ahead as proposed, they will be outraged for ever; they will hold those responsible guilty for ever and will never forgive them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) on securing this debate. I have to be in a Standing Committee at 10.30 am, so I will leave before the Minister winds up the debate. None the less, I welcome the opportunity to make a few points. I have been opposed to on-land wind farms for a long time. I am not opposed to microgeneration that serves individual houses and communities, but the contribution that on-land wind farms can make to reducing carbon emissions is limited and not altogether positive.

When technical advice note 8 was produced in 2005, I opposed it, and in so doing I faced a lot of criticism from my party and from people in my area, because they saw such developments as a way to deal with climate change. I made a number of points about TAN 8 at the time. I said that there had been no opportunity to hold a public inquiry on the allocation of land for wind farm developments. I also said that it took no account of the difficulty of transporting the structures to such isolated places. Apparently, there was no consultation with the trunk road agencies in Wales, let alone with the highway departments of our local authorities.

My other concern was the real impact that the transmission cables would have on the beauty of our countryside. I was unaware then of the impact that the transformer stations would have, but I clearly understood the problem with the transmission lines. It seems incredible to me that such concerns were not included in the consideration of TAN 8. In many instances, one has to apply for planning permission for the transmission lines after the planning permission has been given for the wind farms. My heart goes out to my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire, because much of that will impact on his constituency.

I do not know if it is very good practice to change a planning policy as a result of planning applications that have been made. That seems to be putting the cart before the horse and does not seem to be very good practice. For instance, in my constituency there are private individuals who were aware of the implications of TAN 8 but who none the less invested a great deal of money in the sector. We are talking about not just multinational companies or large companies in Brittany but private individuals who have seen an opportunity to make an investment that is apparently in accordance with the policy of both the Welsh Assembly Government and the UK Government. They have made that investment, but where do they stand if the policy on which they made that investment decision changes? That is a point that I want the Minister to address. There must be some recompense for those people if we change our minds at this very late stage.

I think that I was awarded a medal of honour by the opponents of the Cefn Croes wind farm when that project was proposed in the early years of this century. It was during my first term in Parliament and the development was due to be in Ceredigion, before my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) was the MP for that constituency. I was criticised by the then MP for Ceredigion for involving myself in the opposition to that project.

[Glyn Davies]

I thank the hon. Member for giving me the opportunity to make a point that I wanted to make in my opening speech but missed out. His reference to Cefn Croes is important. Does he agree that the Cefn Croes wind farm area could easily have been a national park, and that it is purely an accident of history that it is not? North and south of that area are two national parks, Brecon Beacons national park and Snowdonia national park. The idea of making the area in between a national park was considered, but because things turned against the public support for national parks, there was no Cambrian mountains national park. It is still talked about a lot and it is still a long-term possibility, but we are talking about land that is the equivalent of national park land.

[Roger Williams]

The hon. Member makes a very good point. I have been involved with the national park movement for many years, and there is indeed a lot of countryside in and around Wales that would qualify for national park status if it was looked at again. The point that I want to make about Cefn Croes is that it has not delivered the energy that was promised. I was pleased to object to that project and I am pleased that I objected to TAN 8 when it was put forward. However, we are in a very difficult position, and I would not want to promise people that the issue can be resolved easily. Retrospectively changing planning policy as a result of planning applications does not seem a very prudent way to pursue planning policy. Although I will not be present in Westminster Hall when the Minister responds to the debate, I want to read his response later.