Lord Campbell-Savours
Main Page: Lord Campbell-Savours (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the Statement refers to major applications. However, as I suggested in the Statement, where wind farms become cumulative it seems to me that that will need to be taken into account.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, what estimate has been made of the potential decline in the number of wind farm approvals to be made in the United Kingdom? What form is the public benefit—this buying of local communities—going to take? Can we have some more detail on how that will work?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, this does not change what the National Planning Policy Framework lays out at the moment. It advises that local people should be consulted about major planning applications. The Statement says that it will be amended so that they must be consulted. That then makes it a material consideration for the decision on planning applications and must be taken into account. Whether that increases or decreases the number of approvals given will become clearer, but, one way or the other, it seems to us essential that local people, who will feel the impact of wind farms—indeed, who already have experience of them—have a proper say on any future proposal.