RE-think in the Times
Labour versus wind farm resistance: who are the true environmentalists?
Pylon wars in the quiet Welsh hills are already pitting neighbour against neighbour — and it’s only going to get more bitter
Ben Cooke October 15th 2024
Ed Miliband is taking on the “obstructionist” critics of visible wind power, who in Radnorshire include Christine Hugh-Jones, of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, far left and Jenny Chryss of Re-Think
Ed Miliband has his eyes on the prize: an electricity grid that runs almost entirely on cheap, homegrown, renewable energy, and he’s willing to make some enemies to seize it.
Last month he promised members of the trade body Energy UK that he would “take on the blockers, the delayers, [and] the obstructionists” to dramatically expand renewables across the country by 2030, doubling onshore wind and tripling solar energy.
He has already taken some strident steps to meet these targets, ending a de facto ban on onshore wind in England and approving four large solar farms in the face of local opposition.
As Miliband sees it, the point of this building spree isn’t just to fight climate change. It’s also to ease Britain’s reliance on the international gas market, which spiked after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, forcing the last government to spend £94 billion subsidising gas bills.
Wind farms are a key part of Ed Miliband’s goal to deliver clean power by 2030 “The faster we go, the more secure we become,” he told Energy UK members. “Every wind turbine we put up, every solar panel we install, every piece of grid we construct helps protect families from future energy shocks.”
What he did not mention was the delicate matter of whom exactly he is fighting. The “obstructionists” in Miliband’s way are community groups across Britain who do not want their views plastered with turbines, pylons and panels. A government survey shows they are a minority. Only 13 per cent of people would oppose a wind farm in their area, compared with 43 per cent in favour. But their convictions are deep, and they often see themselves as protectors of the environment.
They are on one side of an emerging argument about what it means to be an environmentalist. Does it mean rolling out renewables as quickly as possible, to forestall the climate crisis already harming people and wildlife? Or does it mean constraining that rollout, to protect landscapes and stop birds from getting mangled in turbine blades?
In the seemingly peaceful Radnorshire hills, in mid-Wales, that argument has grown bitter, offering an ill omen of the resistance that Labour might face if it is seen to be imposing renewables on communities without their consent.
Spurred on by the Welsh Labour government’s support, energy companies are hoping to build enough turbines to more than triple Wales’s onshore wind capacity. Bute Energy, a newcomer to the energy industry, is hoping to build about 16 wind farms, including three in the Radnorshire hills. Its subsidiary Green Gen Cymru hopes to build a power line to carry electricity from these three wind farms to a National Grid substation 60 miles away in Carmarthenshire.
More than a dozen campaign groups have formed to oppose the companies’ plans, and they have received the backing of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales.
The protesters argue that Bute’s turbines, some of which would be twice as tall as Big Ben’s clock tower, would scar the Welsh landscape, deterring tourists, killing birds, lowering house prices and sowing division within the
community. They say that Green Gen should put its power line underground, even if that would cost more than pylons.
“We’re not saying don’t deploy any renewables here, we’re not saying we don’t need to get to net zero,” says Jenny Chryss, leader of the protest group Re-Think Wales. “It’s just that we don’t feel there has been proper consideration of how it should be done.”
Chryss is concentrating her efforts on stopping Nant Mithil Energy Park, the first of three wind farms Bute has planned for the Radnorshire hills. It would consist of 31 turbines, some of them 220m tall. She fears the turbines would threaten the red kites that swoop around the hills. Bute says it will “manage the habitat to discourage red kite activity near turbines”.
“Where are the kites going to move to?” says Chryss. “If they go down the road they’ll be sliced up by Bute’s other planned wind farms at Bryn Gilwern and Aberedw. We’re not going to have much biodiversity left in Wales if all the wind farms in the planning system go through.”
In fact, a study by the British Trust for Ornithology suggests that Wales’s red kite population is “resilient” to wind farms, and is very likely to continue growing even if all the planned wind farms are built.
Some campaigners fear that red kites will be killed by the blades of wind turbines
Chryss argues that Wales should get its renewable energy from smaller, community-owned wind farms, in combination with larger wind farms out at sea owned by private companies.
Stuart George, managing director of Bute Energy, says the Nant Mithil turbines have to be that large to be financially viable. He says the country needs a lot of onshore wind because it is the cheapest energy source, and the fastest to build. “You can deliver onshore wind in two years from the point of consent. Offshore wind is probably triple that.”
He adds that the “criticality of climate change” requires society to build renewables quickly and that “we need private investment alongside public investment” to build them fast enough.
Jessica Hooper, director of the trade body RenewableUK Cymru, says that wind energy “offers a game-changing economic opportunity for Wales”, saying it could create thousands of good jobs if the Welsh government pushes wind farms through the planning system.
But Chryss says communities are being “torn apart” by Bute Energy’s plans, with some people taking the company’s money and letting them build on their land, and others refusing. Nigel Dodman and Sandy Boulanger, who live a mile down the hill from Nant Mithil’s proposed site, agree with Chryss. They first heard about the wind farm when their neighbour sold Bute access to his land.
“We haven’t talked to him for nearly two years because the turbine on his land will be very, very close to us,” Boulanger says. “It affects people because they move here thinking they’ve found paradise, and now they’re going to be overshadowed by pylons and turbines and affected by noise,” Dodman adds.
“They become stressed and anxious and start staying in bed all day, drinking a bottle of vodka a day. These are actual examples.”
Campaigners say that the planning process for wind farms is undemocratic because local councils are overruled by the Welsh government
Renewables companies have long sought to soften opposition by donating to local charities and amenities. Bute’s community benefit scheme is 50 per cent more generous than the industry norm, offering £1.5 million to charities, sports clubs and other organisations in the area around Nant Mithil.
But this offer has failed to ease hostility. In June, George wrote to councillors to say his staff had experienced “an unacceptable increase in verbal abuse and threats of violence”. He said residents had warned one of his staff that they would attend a company event carrying weapons.
He added that “in recent weeks there has been a clear escalation in behaviour directed to our staff and our partners, behaviour we feel is encouraged by the rallying tactics and proven misinformation spread widely by the group Re-Think”. Chryss calls George’s letter a “smear completely without foundation” and says Re-Think have never encouraged violence. “None of his allegations have ever been put to us.”
For Boulanger, one of the most galling things about Nant Mithil is the “anti-democratic” planning process by which it would be approved. The Welsh government will have the final say on the project, and could approve it even if planners and councillors oppose it.
It was through this planning system that the Radnorshire hills ended up hosting what Chryss calls “the most infamous wind farm in Britain”, Hendy, a collection of seven turbines that have not generated power in five years because they were built without a grid connection. Hendy, which was built not by Bute but by Njord Energy, was opposed by Powys county council. Hendy wind farm has never been connected to the grid
George says that “if Pedw [the Welsh planning department] recommend not consenting Nant Mithil, and the minister overrides that decision, we will build it”.
Boulanger fears that “Wales could be Labour’s pilot model for pushing through their plans in England”.
Over the border, Miliband has already approved a spate of energy projects in the face of local opposition. One of these projects, Sunnica solar farm on the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border, he approved against the advice of the planning inspectorate.
As Labour forges ahead with its goal to deliver clean power by 2030, the question of how to mollify the opponents of renewables will only grow more urgent. While Labour did promise before the election to ensure that “communities directly benefit from hosting clean energy”, it is yet to spell out how it intends to do so.
It has, however, pledged to give £600 million to councils to build community-owned energy, and is reviewing how communities should be rewarded for hosting wind farms.
One decision that could prove decisive to its clean energy hopes is whether to discount the electricity bills of those who live near renewables.
Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, champions “locational pricing”, saying that those who live in the windiest parts of the country could enjoy the lowest bills in Europe. But others in the energy industry fear it would deter investment in new projects.
Octopus Energy is already offering discounts to customers near its wind farms, spurring more than 35,000 people to ask the company to build them in their areas. These requests amount to 9GW of onshore wind energy, about half what Labour wants to add to the grid by 2030.
“I’m sure lots of people around here would be very persuaded by discounts off their energy bills,” says Boulanger. “As it is, we feel like no one is benefiting from this except for the rest of the country.”
