Kenly Wind Farm

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

The University of St Andrews is the oldest university in Scotland. It is notable not only for being where the Earl and Countess of Strathearn met and recently celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary, but for being a world leader in education, as a university ranked first in Scotland and third in the UK last year. It is a hub of groundbreaking research and innovation, and the largest employer in my constituency of North East Fife.

As part of that innovation, St Andrews has championed sustainability for over two decades, long before it was the dominant issue that it is today. Always leading the charge, the university has pledged to reach net zero by 2035, which is a significant commitment, given not just the date, but the approach that the university is taking. The university, led by its environmental sustainability board, chaired by Professor Sir Ian Boyd FRS, chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2012 to 2019, and now professor of biology at the university, is taking on the net zero challenge, alongside local community organisations and businesses. Indeed, I attended the first meeting of the outreach group only last month. Under complementary environmental sustainability and carbon management plans, the scope of its approach encompasses procurement activities and the travel of international students coming to the university to study. I am sure that the Minister will want to join me in congratulating it on its progress to date.

Reaching that goal involves a number of practical elements, including a biomass plant on the university’s Eden campus, which was supported via the joint working of the UK and Scottish Governments on the Tay cities deal; increasing the use of solar technology; and harnessing the wind power that my hair is often subject to in North East Fife by building a small wind farm at Kenly on land owned by the university.

Planning permission for that project was initially granted in 2013—eight years ago, in a time before referendums. At that time, the Ministry of Defence seemed to be happy to work with St Andrews, supporting the university and its application. The MOD is a statutory consultee in the UK planning system for developments that could impact MOD sites, which includes wind farms. That is a critical issue, because also located in my constituency is the former RAF, now Army, base at Leuchars and its airfield. The MOD rightly has to consider issues such as the potential for wind turbines to interfere with radar systems. While the MOD raised an objection in the formal planning process, the application was granted on condition that an agreement could be reached on mitigating any interference. It was at that point, for reasons that remain unclear, that the MOD’s willingness to engage seemed to break down.

In the past eight years, St Andrews has put forward multiple proposals and made numerous, repeated and high-level attempts to explore a solution with the MOD. Indeed, I myself have already attempted, prior to this evening, to facilitate some movement, but the MOD has refused to provide any real meaningful engagement to date. It says that the proposals to mitigate interference with the radar are not good enough, but fails to articulate what would be enough.

This is not just an isolated local issue. There are 782 onshore wind farms around the UK, amounting to over 11,000 turbines and up to 66 MW of energy each year—enough to power 18.4 million homes—and this trend is not slowing down. The trade group RenewableUK is predicting that onshore wind will continue to be a preferred alternative energy source as we work towards meeting net zero goals. Organisations are being encouraged by this Government to make the switch. Last year, the net zero business champion, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), was appointed. Organisations are encouraged to join the United Nations’ Race to Zero campaign and are celebrated when they do. Part of these commitments will inevitably involve switching to clean energies such as wind. Simply put, there will be more applications for wind farms such as Kenly.

Kenly is not alone in being proposed near a military base. There are 33 RAF bases around the UK, of which at least 13 could be classed as coastal. Coastal areas have some of the best weather conditions for turbines. The Plymouth coastline, south Wales, north Norfolk, Liverpool, Belfast and the East Riding of Yorkshire are all areas where there are both wind farms and an RAF base. The question of how to safely build wind farms near to RAF and other military bases is not unique to Kenly, and this has implications. First, it highlights the lack of transparency in the system, whereby some projects have been allowed to go ahead with mitigations agreed, while others such as Kenly have failed to progress. Just up the road from Kenly, at the now former Michelin factory site in Dundee, two wind turbines were erected. The MOD also objected to this application when it was first made on the ground that it would interfere with the radar at Leuchars, but none the less an agreement was made. Without transparency on how these agreements were reached, St Andrews does not know why or how that project was allowed to go ahead while Kenly was not.

The fact that more onshore wind farms are likely to seek permissions and the likelihood that a proportion will be near RAF bases shows that it is vital for the MOD to put in place a comprehensive plan to work with developers to find meaningful solutions. If the MOD is not working to support wind farms such as Kenly, I wonder what it is doing. On 30 March this year, the MOD published its own climate change and sustainability strategic approach with a foreword by the Minister himself. This includes a commitment to working sustainably, to encouraging the development of low or zero carbon solutions, and to being a partner in the UK’s green transition. In fact, it includes an action plan, which includes a pledge to:

“Grow awareness inside and outside of Defence with a communications plan on commitments and work on climate change and sustainability, inspiring understanding among our people, the wider public, industry and international partners.”

To me, that sounds like the sort of commitment that would involve engaging with projects such as Kenly wind farm and constructively engaging with initiatives to tackle the climate emergency.

The MOD, it is true, is looking at mitigation solutions and novel technologies for use at offshore wind farms. I am sure the Minister will point out that there is an ongoing competition for proposals which closes this week. However, this is not relevant to the 782 onshore wind farms such as Kenly around the UK, as different mitigation solutions—different ways of using technology—are understandably used on land compared with offshore. Even if the solutions were relevant to onshore windfarms, this is a very slow process. It began when the MOD last directly engaged with St Andrews in 2015, and some six years later the competition is only just entering its second phase. Proceeding at this rate, it will be 2033 before the process finishes—too late for St Andrews and its goal to achieve net zero by 2035, and frankly too late for all of us. We all know that to limit global warming to 1.5° C we need to make significant changes now. We cannot afford to wait to finish this process to get started. Organisations that take on this responsibility—that are putting themselves forwards to tackle this challenge—should be supported and not stopped.

It is now two years since this House declared a climate crisis, and the situation has only worsened since that time, with the UK’s contribution to global carbon dioxide emissions continuing to outstrip its share of the global population. This is an issue that my constituents in North East Fife care about deeply. As a prospective parliamentary candidate in September 2019, I took part with other candidates and the then MP for North East Fife in the Line in the Sand climate strike ably led by young people from local high schools. During the subsequent election, students supportive of the Kenly development attended the main hustings in the constituency and made their voices heard. Yes, there were local objections during the planning process, but the rapid development of wind technologies will result in a more efficient and less obtrusive development.

The Government state that they are putting a green recovery at the front and centre of their plans, and we know that a shift to clean renewable energy has to be a key part of that process. Just this week, the Prime Minister was in Devon for the G7 summit, where commitments were made to tackle the climate crisis at home and globally, including a commitment to green energy. Later this year, the UK—Glasgow—will be hosting COP26, where I am sure pledges will again be made on green energy. We are told that it is a priority for the Government, and that may be true for some parts of it.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has published a 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, and the Scotland Office has signed up to the previously mentioned Tay cities deal, which supports sustainable initiatives. So, I hope that this is a case of the MOD just needing to catch up. However, if, as the Minister himself wrote in his foreword to the MOD strategic approach, it is determined to play its full part in helping the Government to address climate change head-on, that needs to happen now.

St Andrews has been trying to work with the MOD on the conditions needed to build Kenly wind farm for eight years. The wind farm would save 7,500 tonnes of carbon per year. It would secure energy pricing into the future, freeing up funding for world-class teaching and research for a sector already hard-hit by the covid pandemic. The Government should support that as part of their aspirations for the UK to become a global innovation hub. Ultimately, it would allow St Andrews to become self-sufficient in electrical energy.

St Andrews accepts the need to work with the MOD. It was for that reason that it engaged with the MOD so early in the planning process. Its frustrations at a lack of ongoing meaningful discussions are entirely understandable. It needs to know what the MOD wants, so that it can try to provide it. If there are no ways to mitigate the risks to RAF radar, that needs to be communicated with full reasoning.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister to indicate in his response whether he will agree to meet representatives from the university, the MOD’s wind farm team, me and other stakeholders so that finally a constructive way forward can be agreed.