Offshore Wind Generation (North Wales)

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan, and to speak after my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), who I am delighted is an honorary north Walian for the morning—that is excellent, we always welcome tourists.

I place on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for securing this important debate. He follows in the footsteps of other great Welsh radicals such as Megan Lloyd George and Cledwyn Hughes in representing north Wales’s great island constituency. He is a great expert on energy with a passion for the low-carbon economy and a deep concern for how we can best meet the energy needs of our nation.

What has been encouraging this morning is to hear that we are not nimbys, that we support green energy and that we have a passion for low carbon throughout the UK but especially in our area of north Wales. We are passionate for the introduction of further renewable energy in the UK as a whole, including north Wales, and more wind energy, on and offshore, must be part of the mix. We in the House urgently need to support moves to encourage better, cleaner energy production, and it must be our task to promote the development of low-carbon energy in whatever way possible. If we are to do that sensibly and in a long-term and sustainable way, we must be careful about how energy policies are achieved and mindful of our choices when beginning new projects.

Let me share an example from my constituency, a proposal that even the writers of the most outlandish science fiction films could not have come up with. Imagine a designated area of outstanding national beauty—the Clwydian range and Dee valley—and then imagine plans for onshore wind turbines to be placed just outside it. That is the Mynydd Mynyllod wind farm proposal: 25 turbines, each 145 metres tall, at the foot of the Berwyn mountains. They would be placed in a non-TAN 8 area, an area not specifically designated for wind farms, and would each stand one and a half times the height of Big Ben.

It is encouraging to hear in the debate and throughout the House the support and the passion of the support for wind energy, but most Members would not therefore suggest, as a logical consequence, that wind farms can be sited absolutely everywhere—not, I suggest, at the side of Westminster abbey and perhaps not on the dome of St Paul’s cathedral or even on the humble and rather unremarkable piece of grass outside that is College green. Why therefore the double standard that allows turbines to be placed right by the Clwydian range and Dee valley area of outstanding national beauty? There is a great debate about whether wind turbines are beautiful—that is probably in the eye of beholder—but just as one would never place a large mural replicating Picasso next to Big Ben, it surely cannot be appropriate to site 25 wind turbines each of 475 feet on the outskirts of one of Wales’s and, indeed, Britain’s most beautiful natural areas, as evidenced by the AONB status.

To tackle climate change effectively, the Government need to harness intelligent, renewable forms of energy, and wind farms need to be part of the overall proposals to make such positive changes. Let us be creative and innovative, and look at better places for new developments and not simply site them without reference to their surroundings. The action group STEMM—Stop the Exploitation of Mynydd Mynyllod—rightly notes that the effect of the turbines at Mynydd Mynyllod would extend far beyond local residents, affecting visitor numbers, hotels and bed and breakfasts, and the numbers at local campsites and caravan parks, putting our precious and often precarious rural economy at risk. That is why hundreds of people have spoken out against the proposals and the recently added plans for further turbines in nearby Llandrillo. That is why I am pleased to support the campaign.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The First Minister of Wales—a member of the hon. Lady’s party—recently stated that he was in favour of full devolution of all energy powers. Last spring, I introduced a Bill to achieve that aim, but the hon. Lady and her colleagues marched through the No Lobby with the Tories. Where does she stand now?

[Susan Elan Jones]

I wondered whether the hon. Gentleman might be making his intervention to support Tal Michael in the North Wales police area, which seems to be a popular thing for his colleagues to do. The whole issue of energy is complex. Many of the major decisions will involve both Governments and we have to have that discussion, so what the First Minister has to say is worthy of debate. Let us have that discussion, because we will stand up for Wales, while the hon. Gentleman’s party will sell it down the river to a poorer future.

To return to my text, the great 19th century Welsh poet Ceiriog, who lived in another beautiful part of my constituency, wrote the famous poem “Aros Mae’r Mynyddoedd Mawr”, often translated as “Still the mighty mountains stand”. Those mountains of the Clwydian range stand and wait for all those who love and appreciate our uniquely beautiful landscape in north Wales. One thing I am pretty certain about, however, is that what they do not stand for is gigantic wind turbines, which, if situated there, would destroy the natural environment and profoundly alter the character and the economy of the area. The proposal needs to go back to the drawing board, and unless it is radically altered and more sensible geographical alternatives are considered, that is where it should stay.