This site attempts to provide an accessible (and comprehensible) source of information on the numbers and locations of wind power proposals in Northumberland and the Scottish Borders.
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| Single Map | North Map | South Map |
In September 2005, with only a handful of small turbines operating and with only 38MW of wind power in the planning system in Northumberland, the North East Assembly's 'Regional Renewable Energy Strategy Review' noted that the amount of developer activity was more accurately reflected in the fact that there were 627.5MW of wind proposals in pre-planning for the Region.
Even the writers of this report (TNEI), sounded somewhat surprised at the scale of the speculative windrush that they and the regional planners had helped to unleash:
[...] Significant development within the RSS Policy 42 broad areas will progressively shift the current recognition that “there is some limited wind energy development in the region’s landscapes” to a perception that “the region’s landscapes contain a number of wind developments”. Within and close to some of the RSS Policy 42 broad areas it is possible that this perception could shift even further to the point where “this is a wind energy landscape” may be a valid opinion. [...] 1
The situation in Scotland at the same time was even more over-heated. Without the zoning of the Policy 42 'areas of least constraint' which has encouraged a concentration of proposals in the North East, the Scottish Borders has seen a rash of large proposals spreading out from the Lammermuirs.
Around 340MW of capacity have been built or consented in the Scottish Borders and Lothians. There are another 366MW in the planning system and much more in pre-planning with no sign that developer activity is tapering off.
The North East Assembly has at least revisited the question of landscape capacity, in commissioning a 'Regional Windfarm Development Study' 2 which was piloted in the Knowesgate/Harwood Forest area of Tynedale and has subsequently been rolled out in other 'areas of least constraint' for wind power development in Northumberland identified in the North East Regional Spatial Strategy.
Though this study is widely welcomed, it has to be said that it ignores the fact that regional energy strategy is still working to the 2003 White Paper agenda: being biased in favour of wind power development, not considering its cost-effectiveness in saving very small amounts of greenhouse gas emissions or applying any cost/benefit analysis to its impacts on rural regeneration in areas that were only just beginning to recover from the economic effects of the foot and mouth disease epidemic. Absolutely no consideration is given to the comparative economic benefits of renewables technologies.
Regional energy planning is further skewed by unsupported assumptions about the benefits of wind power and a reliance on agencies and consultancies such as TNEI which have a large financial interest in wind power development.
It says something about politics and the planning system that it is left to small community response groups, individuals and the press to attempt to find out and publicise what is going on with regard to wind power development in the region.
The North East Assembly, an unelected agency which is the strategic planning body with direct responsibility for the present situation in North East of England, has said that it does not keep any record of developer activity and relies on the county councils and local planners for information. The Energy North East website has a dinky little diagrammatic map which shows only operating sites and which is selective, incomplete and out of date. The North East Renewable Energy Group shares the same (lack of) information.
The various planning authorities do now produce occasional lists of wind power proposals and their status. These are usually buried in committee minutes and reports. No official body publishes a simple, regularly updated map of proposals in the area. So it remains difficult for anyone to get a clear idea of the overall picture without spending a lot of time researching press, local government and developer websites.
In a welcome development, the DBERR (DTI) has provided the RESTATS website which gives access to a database of UK renewable energy projects over 10MW since 1999. The database claims to track the planning status of every renewable energy project and to provide a record of operational renewable energy developments.
Importantly, planning details are also collected from local planning authorities and developers and the site states that the database is designed to provide a history of planning applications, therefore the maps should show all projects, including those which did not achieve planning approval.
The website provides a GIS facility to review the information held in the database, it also holds the 'quarterly reports' (which provide a summary of progress every three months), and by the end of September an interactive query is supposed to be available to interrogate the data by status or technology. The database is - supposedly - updated every month.
Unfortunately, the website is not very well designed or particularly user-friendly. But making this database accessible at all is a huge step forward. Searches are currently giving inaccurate and out of date information for this area but we hope the quality will improve as the project shakes down.
Hopefully this is a move towards the redundancy of the Windbyte site!
Every effort has been taken to ensure that the information published on this web site is accurate. However, windbyte.co.uk can accept no liability for the accuracy of content which has been gathered from other published sources. Visitors who rely on this information do so entirely at their own risk.
If you find any errors - please email corrections to the webmaster.