Save Radnor Forest
Stop Nant Mithil energy park
To understand what is at stake click here to view the campaign film
Statutory consultation
In late May Bute Energy progressed its flagship Nant Mithil Energy Park to the formal stage by holding a statutory consultation. To that end a promotional brochure and a revised web site with approximately 1500 pages of technical documents was released and 3 consultations were held, staffed largely by bought in technical “experts” with little knowledge of the area concerned or wider issues. No directors of Bute Energy or the Nant Mithil Energy Park bothered to attend. The overall impression was that the company was treating the consultation as a tick box exercise rather than an opportunity to hear the concerns of those in the areas affected.
The statutory consultation ended on June 24th 2024 and over 700 responses were received by the company. Thank you to all who took the trouble to respond with their questions and concerns. As this was a statutory consultation the company are obliged to deal with these responses in detail in a consultation report to PEDW as part of the planning process.
Crowd-funder
On November 10th 2024 RE-think launched a "crowdfunder" to raise money for professional help in our efforts to defeat Bute Energy's plans for their Radnor Forest wind farm, Nant Mithil. The aim was to raise funds for a planning and energy expert to help us with our application submission and then represent us at the public hearings which will follow. The “crowd funder” closed in December 2024 and raised sufficient funds to meet our initial objectives outlined above. Thank you to all who contributed.
Further funds will be inevitably be required to take the fight further and donations may be made through this site ( “Support us”). Any money left will go towards fighting adjacent proposals on Gilwern Hill and Aberedw Hill, as well as Green Gen's proposal for a 60-mile power line linking them to the grid.
What next?
On December 20th 2024 Bute Energy submitted a planning application for their Radnor Forest wind farm, Nant Mithil. Before we, the public, get the chance to see the application, it has to be verified by PEDW, the Welsh Government’s Planning Inspectorate. Because of resourcing issues at PEDW there is a delay of up to six months on the verification of applications, so we may not see it until May or June. But we can’t be certain of this because there is talk of prioritising, so we have to be prepared. The application could go live at any time.
Once the application documents are published, we and our consultants will have about five weeks to go through the several thousand pages and make our comments to PEDW. PEDW will examine the application, possibly with a public hearing part way through the process before a decision is reached in several months’ time.
As this is a DNS application (Development of National Significance) it will be determined by a Welsh Government Minister, who may or may not follow the advice of their own planning inspector.