Wind Power
(asked on 27th June 2018) - View Source
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he can take to ensure that community benefits which are the result of an agreement to establish a wind-farm are honoured when that wind-farm changes owner or operator; and if he will make a statement.
Community benefit funds for onshore wind farms are industry led, voluntary initiatives, which are agreed between developers and local communities in line with protocols that have been established in England and Scotland. Trade associations are responsible for ensuring that the protocols they have created are honoured by their signatories.
We have been clear that we expect developers to provide a fund for local communities in the vicinity of their wind farms. Whilst in Coalition we worked with industry to implement a new community benefit protocol for projects in England, to ensure communities receive a greater level of benefit, and established an online register of English community benefits to aid transparency and accountability. A similar protocol and register has been established for onshore wind projects in Scotland.
Guidance has been produced by the UK Government to aid engagement between developers, communities and local authorities when negotiating community benefit fund arrangements, which is available online at:
This recommends that the agreement to provide a community fund should be documented as a legal contract between the wind farm developer and the Fund Administrator, and that a mechanism for ensuring that the community benefit provisions continue should be included, irrespective of who owns the wind farm.