Navitus Bay Wind Farm

Conor Burns Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to rise to address the House in this Adjournment debate. It is four years and two weeks since I stood in exactly the same place and made my maiden speech, which was in an Adjournment debate on student visas. I was pleased on that occasion to make significant progress with the Government afterwards. I hope that the same will be the case today. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is responding and the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), is in his place.

This is not a debate about the Government’s energy policy or about their renewables policy; those are debates for another day. This is about a particular proposal to build a wind farm off the Dorset coast. It is appropriate that we are debating it while councillors from across the country are enjoying the Local Government Association’s annual conference in Bournemouth and the stunning views from the wonderful conference facility. I recently conducted a survey on the proposed wind farm and have brought with me a small sample of the responses. They show overwhelming opposition from my constituents and others, and for good reasons.

I wish to discuss the potential impact of the Navitus Bay wind farm on England’s only natural world heritage site, the Jurassic coast, designated by the Government and UNESCO in 2001. That status, under article 4 of the world heritage convention of 1972, obliges the Government to protect, conserve, present and transmit to future generations the sites identified as being part of the cultural and natural heritage. A proposal for a wind farm of up to 194 turbines, each of up to 200 metres in height, is currently before the Planning Inspectorate for evaluation. It will be sited within full view of the Jurassic coast and its main visitor centre at Durlston castle. As part of the planning process for this proposal, DCMS submitted an environmental impact assessment to UNESCO. I wish to address the response of UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature to that environmental impact assessment.

In its comments on the environmental impact assessment, the IUCN raised a number of concerns about the potential impact of the proposed wind farm on the Jurassic coast world heritage site, particularly regarding the unique processes that shape the Jurassic coast and contribute to its outstanding universal value. If this outstanding universal value is compromised and the natural erosion processes on the coast are affected, the reason for the site’s designation as a world heritage site would be threatened. The IUCN notes, too, the potential for the proposal to affect the protection and management of the property. It states that

“in particular, the adequate protection of the wider setting of the property, recognized by the World Heritage Committee to justify at the time of inscription the lack of a defined buffer zone, will be compromised.”

As such, the IUCN said that

“any potential impacts from this project on the natural property are in contradiction to the overarching principle of the World Heritage Convention as stipulated in its Article 4”

as

“the completion of the Project would result in the property being presented and transmitted to future generations in a form that is significantly different from what was there at the time of inscription and until today.”

The first of a number of questions I would like to put to the Minister is this: what is his response to IUCN’s conclusions, and how will the Government meet their obligations under the convention to protect the setting of the site, as well as its listed outstanding universal values?

UNESCO does not make hollow threats. In 2011, there were plans to site a three-turbine wind farm development 10.5 miles from the shore near Mont St Michel in Brittany. As this threatened the setting of the world heritage site, the French Government acted to exclude wind farms from a buffer zone around the site. They were right to do so, as UNESCO is not afraid of removing a site’s designated status. The Elbe valley in Germany was removed from the list of world heritage sites in 2009 following the construction of a four-lane bridge in the valley which meant that

“the property failed to keep ‘its outstanding universal value as inscribed.’”

My colleagues would not expect me to say this, but my second question to the Minister is this: will he follow the French example and take action in England to protect the setting of our only natural world heritage site for future generations, thus avoiding the fate that befell the Germans?

I believe that if the Jurassic coast were to lose its designated status as a world heritage site, the tourism economy throughout Dorset would suffer drastically. Over 30 million trips were made to Dorset in the past year, some 5 million of which included the Jurassic coast, and evidence suggests that visitor numbers have increased since the Jurassic coast’s designation as a world heritage site. Given that Navitus Bay’s own research shows that 48% of people visiting the area cite the sea view as a reason for doing so, and that IUCN

“considers that the impact of the Project on the visitors’ experience and appreciation of the property in its wider natural setting is likely to be significant”,

it is by no means a leap of the imagination to say that the proposed wind farm will have a significant impact on tourism numbers.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

The fact that there are many Dorset MPs in the Chamber today shows that we fully support the compelling case that my hon. Friend is making. My constituents are very worried about this proposal and the impact that it will have on the local economy.

[Conor Burns]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and I salute his dogged determination in opposing this plan and, indeed, that of my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for South Dorset (Richard Drax), who are sitting behind me. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) would be present, except that he is on manoeuvres on Salisbury plain as part of his Territorial Army activities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), who is my parliamentary neighbour, knows about the vital impact on Bournemouth and the conurbation. Tourism is Bournemouth’s second most important sector of the economy after financial services and it is worth about £475 million to the town annually. It directly supports 8,500 local jobs, with a further 2,000 jobs indirectly dependent on visitors. Across Dorset as a whole, tourism is worth in the region of £1.7 billion annually and supports in the region of 47,000 jobs.

Given that 20% of summer visitors surveyed by Navitus Bay—they were surveyed by the development company itself—said that they would be unlikely to visit Bournemouth during the five-year construction phase and 14% said that they would be unlikely ever to return, the development would have a major impact on our tourism economy and change the nature of our town and conurbation.

May I, therefore, ask the Minister another direct question? Given the importance of tourism to Bournemouth and Dorset’s economy and the Government’s commitment to our long-term economic plan—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] I am not surprised that my colleagues expected me to say that—what steps will the Minister take to ensure that this damaging proposal does not go ahead?

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and fighting, as we all are, this cause. Does he agree that what is surprising is that it is not as if there is nowhere else to locate this wind farm? The Crown Estate identified eight other sites totalling about 225,000 sq km that would be nowhere near the land and that certainly would not damage this fantastic site. Why on earth did the Crown Estate choose this most special site, which we are trying to protect?

[Conor Burns]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The development company was given a vast area to put the wind farm and my hon. Friend will remember that in our initial meetings with its representatives, we told them that we would not oppose it if it was not visible from the shore, if its visual impact did not deter visitors and if it did not damage the world heritage site. All the company had to do was push it further out within the area given to it by the Crown Estate, but it did not do that.

I want to turn to some of the criticisms of the submission process, starting with the independence of the environmental impact assessment. I agree with the IUCN that it would have been more appropriate for DCMS to have commissioned an independent environmental impact assessment, rather than use one prepared by the proponents of the scheme—the Navitus Bay development company. In the words of IUCN,

“this raises questions on the credibility and objectivity of the assessment.”

I have heard some of the arguments made by Navitus Bay to discredit IUCN’s comments, including that they were merely interim and are not aligned with other impact assessments. Could that be because other impact assessments have been provided or commissioned by Navitus Bay itself? Is this a case of, “We’re right, because the documents we have written say so”?

Then there is the question of the appropriateness of the guidance used. The IUCN notes that the guidance used by Navitus Bay for its assessment was not the most appropriate possible. Rather than using the IUCN world heritage advice note on environmental assessment, Navitus Bay used the International Council on Monuments and Sites “Guidance on Heritage Impact Assessments for Cultural World Heritage Properties”, which is adapted to cultural heritage. According the IUCN, it did so despite being aware of the IUCN guidance, which is referred to in the environmental impact assessment.

IUCN claims that by adopting the other guidance rather than the IUCN advice note, Navitus Bay failed to adhere to all eight world heritage impact assessment principles. Notably, IUCN believes that Navitus Bay failed to adhere to the principle that

“reasonable alternatives to the proposal must be identified and assessed with the aim of recommending the most sustainable option to decision-makers, including”—

crucially—

“the possibility of the ‘no project’ option”.

Why did the DCMS not commission an independent environmental impact assessment?

Did the Minister or any of his current or previous colleagues in the Department approve the letter to UNESCO of 17 February—sent by Leila Al-Kazwini, the DCMS head of world heritage—that takes for granted the evidence provided by Navitus Bay regarding the impact of the proposal on the Jurassic coast while dismissing the concerns of, among others, the steering group for the world heritage site itself?

Sixthly, given those criticisms, does the Minister have confidence in the environmental impact assessment submitted by his Department but created by the Navitus Bay development company?

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this important debate. Does he share my concern that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport did not issue a formal response to the UNESCO letter of 2 May? That letter contains some powerful arguments. Surely they merited a response from my hon. Friend the Minister. Instead, according to a parliamentary answer I received from him on 23 June, that letter was passed to the planning authorities as part of a process. Is that not most unsatisfactory?

[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend makes a very important and valid intervention. One reason why I attempted to secure the debate was so that the Minister has the opportunity to explain the Department’s thinking. He also has the opportunity to explain to the House that this is not simply a matter for the Department of Energy and Climate Change or the planning inspector in Bristol, but a matter for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has a vital, and indeed legally binding, obligation to do all it can to protect that world heritage site, and, as it says, to pass it on intact to future generations. I look forward to his response in a moment.

I conclude as I began. This is not about the Government’s energy policy, renewable energy or subsidy. Hon. Members have different views on those. The debate is about a proposal that my constituents and those of my hon. Friends fundamentally believe is the wrong proposal in the wrong place. Its demerits vastly outweigh its merits. The Government can achieve all their energy ambitions and still say no to the application. My hon. Friend the Minister of State now has an opportunity to tell us what he is prepared to do to assist us. It does not just affect us in Dorset. As things develop, it could affect Hampshire Members—I notice that my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne) is sitting on the Front Bench. The New Forest would be torn up to allow energy to get into the grid.

This is very serious. I say without exaggeration that it is possibly the most significant issue in Bournemouth and the conurbation, and Dorset more widely, in a generation. I hope that the Minister, in his reply, can assure us and our constituents that he is with us and will do what he can to protect that fantastic bit of England.