Wind Farm Development (Sedgefield)

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Westminster Hall

[Phil Wilson]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. In a moment, I shall be pointing out how much of a role County Durham and Sedgefield residents are playing in combating climate change.

It is the job of each developer to promote their schemes, but because the planning system is run on a first-come, first-served basis there is a rush to the planning authorities, and local people are left feeling under siege and helpless. I shall give an example by detailing the level of interest in and around my constituency by developers. I say “in and around the constituency”, because when my constituents look out of the windows they do not see the boundaries between constituencies; they see pleasant countryside. Indeed, from certain parts of the constituency they can see magnificent views of the North Yorkshire moors and Cleveland hills.

This is the state of play. As I said, 16 wind farms are up and running in County Durham, and another has been permitted but has not yet been built; 67 turbines are generating 126 MW. A further five wind farms are in planning, with a further 10 turbines; and three are in pre-planning with 18 turbines. That is a total of 95 turbines. Then there is the mother of all wind farms, the Isles wind farm proposed by E.ON, which will raise the number of turbines, operational and proposed, to as many as 140.

Within hundreds of metres of the Durham county council border at Sedgefield, three turbines are operational near Elwick. Just to the south, along the A1, a further six have been granted at Red Gap farm. Three turbines have received planning consent at Lambs hill near Stockton, and they directly affect my constituency because of their proximity. In the borough of Darlington, an area that I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman), three are proposed at East and West Newbiggin. Banks Renewables has gone to appeal on a wind farm of 10 turbines at Moor House farm, just to the south of E.ON’s large proposal. The list goes on.

Local people feel inundated and helpless. I am sorry to say that they are resentful of a planning regime that does not seem to listen to them. I accept that not all the proposed wind farms will go ahead. However, the Minister cannot deny that they will have a cumulative impact in County Durham and the Tees valley plain. When I say no to the Isles wind farm, I do so because I know that my constituents in County Durham are doing their bit. Even the developers are starting to concede that point. A representative of Banks Renewables, wind farm developers that have sites in the county, was interviewed by the Teesdale Mercury on 24 August 2011. He said:

“An unfortunate repercussion of County Durham being forward thinking in its approach to renewable energy development is the potential for cumulative impact to occur...The pursuit of several wind farms within the county by competing developers has potential to cause an unacceptable impact upon the landscape.”

He is absolutely right; in my view we are already at that stage.

County Durham’s record on renewable energy is another reason why I believe that we are not being nimbyist in our approach. The county council was the first local authority in England to have a renewable energy strategy; it dates back to 1994. The renewable electricity target for County Durham in the regional spatial strategy—I realise that it does not apply any more—was 82 MW installed capacity by 2010. Since then, about 165 MW of installed capacity of renewable energy development has been permitted in the county. Only 11 MW of that was permitted on appeal—the majority, 154MW, was granted by the council.

A capacity of 165 MW will meet about 55% of County Durham’s household electricity consumption, or 22% of the county’s overall electricity consumption. That is a fantastic record, and one of the best in England. I am sure that the Minister will agree that County Durham is doing its bit, and I hope that he will pay tribute to the county’s record.

County Durham’s 2010 target has been met and exceeded by a substantial margin. The aspiration to double that target by 2020 has already been achieved, and progress is being made towards the more recent national target of 30% by 2020. That has been achieved through a planned approach based on the north-east region’s renewable energy strategy and development capacity studies commissioned and endorsed by local authorities in the region.

The Tees plain was identified as a broad area of least constraint for wind energy development. Its capacity was identified as being between 20 and 25 turbines. It is covered by four local planning authorities—Durham county council, and Stockton, Hartlepool and Darlington borough councils. A development capacity study was carried out by consultants Arup in 2008, when there were a total of 20 operational or permitted turbines in three wind farms. It concluded that there was potential to exceed the level of development anticipated, and that two additional wind farms totalling between nine and 15 turbines might be acceptable.

Since then, two additional wind farms totalling nine turbines have been permitted. The area is therefore at or approaching the capacity identified in the Arup report. Currently, there are planning applications for three additional wind farms and a single turbine development in the area, totalling 13 turbines; and one planning application for 10 turbines is in abeyance. Those applications will be determined against the development plans of the relevant planning authorities, having regard to both the Arup capacity study and the evolving cumulative impact picture as they progress through the system. According to impact assessment studies, the area chosen by E.ON at the Isles—the company has built many wind farms in the area—can cope with only four to six turbines, but E.ON plans between 25 and 45. Durham can meet its targets because we have proved willing to embrace other renewable technologies in the same area. In Chilton, which is in my constituency and north of the Isles, Dalkia has just opened a biomass facility, producing 15 to 17 MW of electricity. Some 24.4 MW of electricity is generated from biomass in the county, 12.7 MW from landfill and 2.1 MW from hydro. County Durham is playing its part. Everyone wants to share the benefits of renewable energy, but we also need to share the burden.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I hope my hon. Friend and my neighbouring MP will forgive me if I go off on a slight tangent. Does he agree that while our constituents are getting the pain of wind farms, they are not getting the benefits? That was perhaps best illustrated this week when EDF awarded all its contracts for a massive wind farm off the Teesside coast to companies abroad, instead of creating jobs in our constituencies for our people who have the skills and facilities with which to build that farm.

[Phil Wilson]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Although the landscape in the area has begun to be reindustrialised, we are not getting any of the benefits.

We are getting energy from other renewable sources such as hydro, landfill, and biomass, and now our constituents are beginning to wonder whether we are all in this together. They look at Hampshire, which is using three times as much energy as Durham but taking only about 4% of it from renewables. Moreover, there is not one on-shore wind farm in the area, despite the fact that it is the county in which the Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change has his constituency.

Only five members of the Cabinet have wind farms in their constituency. Some have a lot. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has 259 in his constituency of Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, but his constituency covers l,911 square miles—almost as many as there are amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill. The Scottish Secretary has 226 turbines in a constituency covering almost 1,500 square miles. The Foreign Secretary, whose constituency is adjacent to mine, has 24 turbines in an area covering 739 square miles. Sedgefield covers 151 square miles. If the developers get their way and all 87 turbines get the go-ahead, we could see one turbine for every 1.7 square miles. Does the Minister not agree that the planning system for such huge structures is chaotic?