Onshore Wind Energy

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who has demonstrated, if anything could, that this is no longer a particular constituency problem, but a national issue that is building up.

I recognise the need for energy diversity, which is obvious considering what is happening in the middle east and considering the fact that the previous Government did not drive forward nuclear power stations. I object to the pro lobby immediately trying to paint into a corner anyone who objects to wind farms as some kind of climate change denier, or as someone who is against renewables, although one or two of my hon. Friends might be against renewables—or a particular hon. Friend, shall we say. I go through all that to explain that I am not against diversity and I am not against renewables, but I am against these particular monsters and the nature of them.

Like many other hon. Members, I am concerned about the size of wind turbines; local planning regulations, which have been mentioned; efficiency, which has also been mentioned; and the numbers. Consistency has been mentioned by other hon. Members, so I will not speak too long on that, but on 2 February, The Times said that there was a 20% fall in the amount of electricity produced by some wind turbines in the UK last year. We have all heard the reports over the winter that 3,000 operational wind turbines in the UK produced less than 1% of the nation’s power on several days. We all know that wind varies, but I do not think that any of us expected it to vary by that much, given the numbers.

Turning to the numbers, I think it was Lord Marland, in a written answer in the other place on 19 January, who came up with the figure of 70% renewable regeneration coming from wind. That would equate to 4,000 offshore turbines and 10,000 onshore turbines, as other hon. Members have mentioned. That is quite a forest of turbines. My own humble calculation, looking at the planning applications in my area, is that the average onshore turbine sits in a footprint of 260 square metres; 260 multiplied by 10,000 comes to 2,600 square km, if my maths is correct—I think I got a C grade in my O-level maths, which I had to get for some reason—or for other hon. Members, that is 1,004 square miles in proper measurement. That is equivalent to the whole of Derbyshire being covered by wind turbines if this policy continues, or almost the whole of Oxfordshire, or almost 90% of my county and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney). That is quite a lot of English countryside covered in wind turbines.

Size is also an issue, as other hon. Members have mentioned. In my area, the turbines are 125 metres. That is nearly as tall as the London Eye. As the hon. Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) so powerfully put it, the question that comes up in my area is why do we always get these things? Why do I not see them when I come to London?

[Stephen Barclay]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. There is an issue of fair play and justice. Rural communities have been asset stripped. They have lost their pub, they have lost their village hall, and they have lost their magistrates court. In fact, they feel that pretty much everything has been taken away from them, and then they see this metropolitan agenda imposing turbines on them out of all proportion. I have had heartbreaking letters from constituents saying that they feel the only thing left in their rural landscape is the view when they take their dog for a walk. They write to me saying, “Please don’t take that away”. It comes back to the issue that a number of Members have made about balance, which is the point my hon. Friend is making.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is right about balance, but it also goes beyond that. We are told that there is not much wind in London. Well, it is pretty windy on Primrose hill, but that perspective is protected by London planning law because of the view of St Paul’s. There are protected sightlines, yet the rest of us have to see our sightlines being destroyed; our new sightlines are wind turbines.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

There is another problem. In urban parlance, a wind turbine is something quite nice to stick over the front door to assuage middle-class guilt. When we drive round the north circular, we see three or four little windmills opposite IKEA and think, “They’re not so bad”. It is the scale and size of the wind turbines that are being imposed on us in the countryside that cause huge concern.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I was going to say that we are not dealing with a wind turbine of the size that someone would put on top of a house in Notting Hill. They are somewhat bigger.

I want to say something about renewables obligation certificates. I quote Professor Ian Fells, who is emeritus professor of energy conversion at Newcastle university. He stated in The Guardian—so it must be right—in 2008 that

“engineers do know a great deal about renewable energy: first and foremost, it is expensive, and is only being developed commercially because of the provision of subsidies of various kinds. This amounted to £1bn last year”—

in 2007—

“and will gross up to more than 20 times this figure by 2020…Wind power onshore has been successful because of marketing subsidies”—

the ROC regime—

“…but even after 15 years it only provides the equivalent output of half a typical gas or nuclear station.”

I love the term “subsidy farming” used by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), and I shall try to remember it, because that is what seems to be happening. To be fair, the Minister has pointed to the reform of the ROC regime that is coming later this year. I hope that it will have the potential to produce a level playing field for other renewables. I have mentioned before that in my area there is a proposal for a barrage on the River Wyre that has been lying around since 1991. Just a slight tweaking of the ROC regime could put that in contention, and it would produce real renewable energy.

To return to local problems in my constituency, Caton is a village in the Lune valley, which my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) knows extremely well. There are already eight turbines sitting on the hill directly behind it. People cannot miss them as they drive up the Lune valley. I do not know how that got through planning.

There was a proposal for a new farm of 20 125-metre turbines beyond Caton, a few miles up the road on Claughton moor—this is 6 km inside the Forest of Bowland area of natural beauty. That application, which was rejected unanimously by the council, is now at the planning appeal stage. As in the cases described by hon. Friends, it was the efforts of volunteers and people in the locality that drove that rejection. The application is going through the appeal process, but the same company has put in a new application for 13 turbines, which is already going through the system. It has an appeal for 20 and a new application for 13 on the same spot if the appeal is turned down.

The people who are trying to fight the application are just ordinary people who live in the area. They are dealing with the highly-paid renewable wind farm industry, with all its massive support, glossy literature and professionals and lawyers. We rely on a group called FELLS—the Friends of Eden, Lakeland and Lunesdale Scenery. The proposals for wind farms along the M6 from Lancaster to Carlisle would result in the area becoming wind turbine alley in about 20 years. The group has consistently fought the proposals, but at huge cost to themselves. The people who are defending the proposals are subsidised by everyone else, including us, through the electricity rates. It is unfair competition. That is one example.

Another example is the application by Lancaster university, which has been told to cut its carbon emissions. Fine. It was told about the subsidies and put in an application for two huge, 125-metre wind turbines that was turned down at planning. What does it come back with? A proposal for one turbine, which would be within 300 metres of where people live. Everybody says, “We can understand the university, because we can understand what it will get in subsidy.”

That brings me to my final point. I compliment hon. Friends who have raised the problem of distance. It really irritates people on the ground that there is nothing in the guidance that specifies minimum distances. Welsh guidance suggests 500 metres, which is typical; Scottish planning says 2 km from local communities; in England, there is nothing. People want consistency.

I saw an article in The Sunday Telegraph on 1 August in which the Department of Energy and Climate Change admitted that noise regulations, and thus minimum distances, have been applied inconsistently. They are totally inconsistent when one looks at the results, and that causes ordinary people to lose confidence in the system.

Yes, I have great hopes for the Localism Bill and the fact that it will give people power. However, Minister, we do not want this country covered by a huge forest of wind turbines. We want a level playing field for other renewables, and we want a chance for ordinary people to take ownership of the land that they cultivate and protect, and have protected for so long.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—