Navitus Bay Wind Farm

Conor Burns Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) on securing the debate to highlight this very important issue. He has been very active on this subject. After I raised it with the previous Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the gentleman who is no longer a Member of the House, my hon. Friend and I went to see him to put on the record our concerns about the process of this development.

Let me pick up a couple of points that colleagues have made. I say to the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) that the critical difference between her constituents and those of other hon. Members present is that her constituents will not have to look at this wind farm. All of ours will, so the impact, by definition, will be greater on the constituencies represented by other hon. Members here.

My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) intervened twice on the point about the distance from shore and the definition that the Government lay down. I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to give us some clarity on that point. I put it to the company before the closure of phase 4 of its consultation; I raised the issue that my hon. Friend raised about the 12 nautical mile limit. In the reply to my letter of objection, Mike Unsworth, the project director at Navitus Bay, said:

“Regarding the wind farm’s distance from the shore, I would emphasise that the Government has not issued guidance that stipulates a 12 nautical mile limit. Indeed on 10 October 2013, the Climate Change Minister Greg Barker was clear that DECC ‘has not issued guidance on the distance that offshore wind farms should be placed from the coast’”.

He was quoting from column 342W of Hansard for 10 October 2013. I ask the Minister to give us some clarity on what the Government’s position is on distance.

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. As I understand it, the EU guidance refers to 23 km, which is not 12 nautical miles, and the Crown Estate had identified eight other sites, which my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) was talking about, totalling some 22,000 sq km. There is no world heritage site in those sites; there is no coastline in sight. Why cannot the company go there?

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[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend makes a very valid point. Even if the company has to go within the development area that it has been given on this site, it does not have to go within the area of the development site that it has chosen. It could go significantly further out to sea.

All hon. Members, at the beginning of this process, were very open in engaging with the company. We have no in-principle objection to wind farms or wind energy at all. That is the policy of the Government. There is no point in arguing on that, whatever our views. We are arguing on the impact that this proposal will have on our local economy and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) says, on a world heritage site.

Bournemouth attracts more than 6 million visitors annually. The tourism economy is worth in excess of £425 million to the town’s economy. It supports in the region of 16,000 local jobs. Navitus Bay’s own research suggested that one third of summer visitors questioned would not return to Bournemouth during the construction period, which it is estimated will last for five years. That would be a devastating blow to our local economy. I have to question how many of the town’s businesses, which rely on tourism, would even be in business at the end of that five-year period if those figures—

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend has been a passionate advocate in looking at the detail of this proposal. Does he agree that one concern is about the shape of the bay? On the left, in the east, we have the Isle of Wight, and on the right, Studland bay. That offers a frame from which visitors can look out to sea. It is very different from Blackpool and other areas, where there is just an open expanse of water. These are reference marks whereby people can measure the height and, indeed, the intrusion of the wind farm. That is why we have been pressing, as my hon. Friend said, for the wind farm to be pushed back as far as possible.

[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point well. The bay and the beach are the hook on which the local tourism economy hangs, and anything that had a detrimental impact on that visually would be very serious. My hon. Friend will know the figures. Navitus Bay’s own research goes on to say that 14% of visitors surveyed—these are the company’s own figures—said that they would never return to the conurbation if there was a visual impact.

There are other things that we still do not know, because the company is sitting on information. Several reports vital to our assessment of the impact of the scheme are ongoing or have not been released, including the assessment of the noise impact, which my hon. Friend the Member for Poole referred to, the night time visual impact report, the climate and microclimate assessment and outstanding issues in the landscape, seascape and visual impact assessment.

The Minister will be aware that even at this stage, the company will not tell us how many turbines there will be, where they will be or what configuration they will be in. When we do not even know what type of turbine the company has in mind, how are we to believe that it has produced accurate visuals on which the public can reasonably comment? The fact is that it has not done so. That is at the centre of our argument about the flawed nature of the consultation process that Navitus has entered into.

Last year, Navitus told us in terms of great rejoicing that we should all celebrate the proposed reduction in the number and height of the turbines. I question how we were supposed to celebrate that when we had not been told how many turbines there would be, what height they would be or where they would be. It is absolutely vital that we know and understand exactly what the proposal looks like. In his letter, Mike Unsworth says:

“It is vital that the views of the public are taken into account.”

The public overwhelmingly want their views on the views that they enjoy to be taken into account, and that cannot happen without accurate visuals.

There was a news story on the subject in October in the Bournemouth Daily Echo, and one of the comments on the story—it is often wise not to read the comments on the Bournemouth Echo, but I did on this occasion—called those who were opposed to the plan “NIMBYs”. Someone commented below:

“Simple answer. My Back Yard is a World Heritage Site.”

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[Michael Fallon]

I have no information on the likely date of the Secretary of State’s consideration, but it might be helpful to my hon. Friends if I explained the process for the consideration of nationally significant infrastructure projects. Navitus Bay is classified as such a project under the Planning Act 2008 regime.

The process can be broken down into several stages. The first stage is pre-application—the stage that the Navitus Bay proposal has reached—and is when an applicant has notified the Planning Inspectorate of its intention to apply for development consent. During that period, an applicant is expected to carry out extensive consultation on the proposal in question, the results of which will feed into its thinking on the configuration of the project before the application is submitted.

The second stage is acceptance. Once the pre-application process has concluded, an application for development consent is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate, which must decide within 28 days whether the application meets the required standards for acceptance.

The third stage is pre-examination, in which an examining authority—an individual or a panel of examiners—will be appointed by the Planning Inspectorate. Members of the public and other interested parties can register with the Planning Inspectorate and provide summaries of their views on the proposals. I encourage all individuals and organisations with an interest in the proposal to engage with any public consultation when it is launched. The inspectorate will convene a preliminary hearing at which the process for consideration of the application will be set out and questions about it considered.

The fourth stage is examination. The Planning Inspectorate has six months to carry out its investigation of the application, which will be undertaken by way of hearings, and to consider any written representations submitted to it. During that process, the examining authority will give consideration to all important and relevant matters that are brought to its attention. The examining authority will also consider any relevant national policy statements that set the policy framework for determining applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects, which were themselves subject to public consultation and scrutiny in the House.

The fifth stage is recommendation. The examining authority must prepare a report and recommendations for the Secretary of State within three months of the close of the examination period.

The final stage is decision, in which the Secretary of State has a further three months to decide whether consent for the proposed development should be granted or refused.

[Conor Burns]

The company has told us that, as it understands the rules, it can change the terms of the application—the height, distance from shore and configuration of the wind farm—after the Secretary of State has given permission for the development to go ahead. Is that the Minister’s understanding?

[Michael Fallon]

That is not quite my understanding, but perhaps I could write to my hon. Friend on that point. Applications for development consent can include infrastructure, which, as the name implies, is associated with the main development in some subordinate capacity. Where that is the case, the planning issues that might affect any of those works will be considered alongside the application for the main development.

I was asked about how far offshore wind farms have to be from the coast. I confirm that we have not issued guidance on any minimum distance. The offshore strategic environmental assessment clarified that the environmental sensitivity of coastal areas is not uniform, and in certain cases, offshore wind projects may be acceptable closer to the coast than in others.

In conclusion, I hope hon. Members understand that interested parties’ concerns about the potential impact of such projects will be thoroughly considered during the planning process, which is designed specifically to encourage participation by all interested parties. I repeat that people or organisations with views on projects that are subject to such applications to the Planning Inspectorate should be encouraged by my hon. Friends to register their interests and to take a full part in the process.