Wind Turbines (Minimum Distance from Residential Premises) Bill [HL]

Lord Williams of Elvel Excerpts

Friday 10th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williams of Elvel]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Reay, for introducing this Bill and for the way he set out his stall—if I may put it like that—with clarity and persuasiveness. On the whole I agree with what he said, but there are two major problems with wind turbines. One is to do with noise, and the other is visibility. The noise point has been satisfactorily illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Reay. If any of your Lordships have actually been near a wind farm, you will understand what the noble Lord has been saying. There is brutal noise on two levels: noise that can be heard and noise that, curiously enough, cannot be heard but still affects the brain. That is one of the major problems that this Bill will have to deal with.

Noble Lords will know that this issue was raised in another place about a year and a half ago by Mr Peter Luff. There was a wind farm application in his constituency of Mid Worcestershire. Nothing much came of it in another place, but I gather there are again moves to produce something along the lines of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Reay. I welcome that.

We might be able to put up with these problems of noise and unsightliness if these machines were efficient and cost effective, but they are neither. The average wind turbine will probably produce something just over 20 per cent of its installed capacity in a given year. It is enormously costly. When we had the big freeze last winter, there was a high-pressure system over the whole of the United Kingdom. Wind farms in the UK produced at 3 per cent of their installed capacity, just when the electricity was needed. That really shows how dreadfully inefficient these things are.

They are also extremely expensive. The noble Lord, Lord Reay, referred to Wales. It is certainly true—we have a plague of these things in Wales. In Powys and Ceredigion, about 240 turbines are in operation, and another 1,000 are under application. The cost of these—together with the cost of lines, pylons, hubs and low-voltage lines—will be in the order of £1.3 billion. This works out at something like £5 million per achieved megawatt. That is the scale of the economic disaster that we seem determined to invest in. I do not believe that the Government have been entirely honest, because the vast bulk of this cost will not be paid by the developers. It will be paid by either the taxpayer or the consumers of electricity.

I understand that when local authorities come to assess planning applications, they have to pay attention to the policy guidance that comes from central government. The problem with that is that none of these planning policy statements—neither PPS 22 nor the additions to PPS 1—is properly debated in Parliament. They are just issued by government, and the chief planning officer, known as the chief planner, simply writes to local authorities saying they are obliged to have regard to these statements when they assess the applications for wind farms according to their development plan. The courts have ruled that these are material considerations for local planning authorities when they make that assessment.

None of that has been discussed in Parliament. I am sure the Minister will be able to assure us that—under the localism proposals—that will change, and we will have an opportunity to discuss, in both Houses, planning guidance that comes from central authorities. The problem is that, not only do we not have a discussion of what government policy is but other organisations—such as Natural England, which I will come to in a minute because it is important for Reeves Hill—seem to take these policy guidance notes as government policy that they themselves must respect. They believe these notes should override the instructions given to them by Parliament. Under the Act setting up Natural England—this is relevant to Reeves Hill—it is perfectly clear that Natural England has a general purpose of enhancing and protecting the landscape. There is an application for four turbines at Reeves Hill. Natural England originally opposed the application, but suddenly withdrew its objection in the light of something called the local landscape enhancement fund, which was to be created in order to compensate people who felt they were affected. This has nothing to do with the general purpose of Natural England, yet it went on to say that the person who should distribute our money is the developer, not the local authority. So the developer not only gets the money himself, but also the right to distribute it as he thinks fit. That simply cannot be right. I would like to ask the Minister if she would impress upon the Government the necessity to instruct Natural England to have regard to the general purposes—which were laid by Parliament—in the Act that set it up.

I do not want to go on too much about the unsightliness of these turbines. However, your Lordships will recognise that, in Wales, we have them on top of hills. If they were in valleys, they might be reasonably acceptable. If your Lordships go along the Cambrian mountains and see the wind farms there, they will understand what I am talking about. If you put them on top of hills, they can be seen for miles. The proposed turbines on Reeves Hill stand on one of the most beautiful parts of western Herefordshire. You can see the Brecon Beacons from there. You can almost see Plynlimon from there. You can see right across towards the Upper Wye Valley. That will be destroyed by these enormous turbines that are going to be erected if this application is successful, and Natural England really ought to be there to oppose it.

Fortunately, it may be that access to the site has to come through Powys. Powys County Council has started to move—very sensibly—in the direction of saying, “We have had enough of these turbines in mid-Wales”. If it does that, we are at last getting somewhere. As the noble Lord, Lord Reay, said, we should Carmarthen if we can and start to change what is a disastrous policy. If the Government wish to engage in renewables, there are plenty of reliable renewables—in tides, nuclear or even offshore wind, which is much more reliable than onshore wind—that they can use. If they wished they could do it, but it needs political will. There is no point wrecking the landscape to try to save the planet, and these turbines do wreck the landscape. I hope very much that the Government will give the noble Lord’s Bill a positive reception—possibly even a fair wind.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Reay, for missing the first 30 seconds or one minute of his speech. I usually go back to Cornwall from this House by train. Today I have to go back by car, because I am picking up my daughter and all her paraphernalia from university to drive her back to that county. One of the pleasures—and I say this absolutely seriously—of driving across Cornwall is when I come along the A30 to an area called Fraddon/Indian Queens, which many noble Lords who have driven to Cornwall will know used to have massive traffic jams, but is now a dual carriageway. As one comes over the peak, there is an array of three wind farms. They add to the fantastic vista of central and west Cornwall.

A few years ago someone who was affected by a wind farm in north Cornwall asked me to look at a similar vista, though a very different one, where the wind farm was going to be established. The major despoiling factor—as is the case in Scotland, but maybe not so much in Wales—was the pylons, which were rather ugly, and criss-crossed the landscape. In terms of comparison, wind turbines are one of the most elegant structures of recent technology ever devised, though I readily accept that they are not to other people.

There was a wind farm application recently in north Cornwall, near Davidstow. One of the concerns on the community side is that the Cornish tourism industry might be affected. A colleague of mine on Cornwall Council but not, to give him his due, of the same party, surveyed tourists on whether they would like a wind farm in that area. He had no difficulty in filling his petition for the wind farm to go ahead. So I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Reay, says about people’s reactions. It is true of some people, but it is not necessarily the reaction of the majority. Indeed, another fellow councillor in west Cornwall—again, not a Liberal Democrat—commented on strategic planning and said that people tend to like wind farms and when they have them nearby, wonder what all the fuss is about.

With regard to issues with households, I am not going to discuss the broader matter of energy policy, which previous speakers have done. That is not what the Bill is supposed to be about. The main problems are to do with flicker and noise. Recently I was at Delabole, which has just been repowered. It has larger wind turbines, but far fewer of them. That is the way the movement is going: fewer individual turbines, but larger ones which are much more efficient. I walked round Delabole wind farm and I cannot remember even hearing the noise. I am sure that there are sometimes noise issues, but I suggest that noble Lords stand by wind turbines to hear what noise there is. It is extremely low; it is far less than a main road or a railway. On many occasions it is not particularly perceptible.

With regard to flicker, I was interested to read a recent study by Parsons Brinckerhoff—not an organisation I know particularly—for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which found that:

“There have not been extensive issues with shadow flicker in the UK. The frequency of the flickering caused by the wind turbine rotation is such that it should not cause a significant risk to health. In the few cases where problems have arisen”—

and clearly there are individual cases where wind turbines have been badly sited, and there will be noise and flicker; that is a planning issue—it says here that:

“they have been resolved effectively using mitigation measures”.

So the case about the alien nature of wind turbines and the effect they have on local communities has been strongly exaggerated in relation to the facts and the reactions of the communities living near them.

It is important to look at the Bill’s effects. The figure is that if there was an exclusion around dwellings of two kilometres, 0.5 per cent of the UK landmass would be able to take wind turbines. Effectively, we would end that industry completely. Although some noble Lords may welcome that fact, this Bill would effectively close down this most efficient and cost-effective form of renewable energy.

I was interested that the noble Lord, Lord Reay, mentioned the Liberal Democrats. I am pleased and proud that he did, but we should remember that it was the Labour Government who primarily promoted wind power and renewables, and the Conservative Party has also been strongly supportive. This is an all-party conspiracy, if you like, against the British landscape, but one in relation to which it is important to meet our renewable targets. However, this should not be the major argument with regard to this Bill.

I do not recognise the strong feelings expressed in this debate; wind power is an obvious, traditional and effective way of generating renewable energy.

[Lord Williams of Elvel]

Does the noble Lord recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Reay, said, that a massive number of people have signed a petition in Wales against TAN 8, more than have signed any other petition to the Assembly? Does he also recognise that the other evening 2,000 people went to a village hall in mid-Wales to protest against an application for a wind farm? That is local response.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I do not know the situation in Wales; clearly the noble Lord, Lord Williams, knows that far better than I do. However, many issues generate long petitions. I have used them many times myself during my political career. Do they always accurately reflect public opinion? Sometimes they do, sometimes they do not. They are not necessarily conclusive. But I would not want to comment specifically on the Welsh situation.