Call for onshore wind farm planning rules to be changed

Future planning decisions about onshore wind turbines should be taken out of the hands of local authorities in England and Wales, government advisers said.

Instead, onshore wind should be treated as “nationally significant,” the National Infrastructure Commission said.

This would allow large systems to bypass local scheduling requirements.

An effective moratorium on onshore wind expansion has been in effect since 2016.

Guidance on where onshore turbines can be built means very few new plans have been approved, even though Britain’s power generation needs to shift away from fossil fuels and towards renewables if it is to meet 2050 climate targets.

More than two thirds of the UK population are not opposed to onshore wind farms, but 12% of people would not be happy with a wind farm being built locally.

In a report, the National Infrastructure Commission recommended that onshore wind projects should be included in the framework for nationally significant infrastructure projects.

This is a system that allows large systems to bypass local scheduling requirements. Onshore wind power was included in the scheme until 2016, but was later removed, returning decisions about new projects to local authorities.

This, combined with the introduction of much stricter planning restrictions under the National Planning Policy, resulted in very few new projects being approved.

In December last year, following a revolt by Tory MPs, the government pledged to ease restrictions on onshore wind farm construction.

A government spokesman said it was responding to the new report and was already “reforming the planning process to clear the way for the energy infrastructure we need.”

Last year, the government launched a consultation on possible reforms to the planning system to make onshore wind project approval easier.

At that time it was said that decisions about possible locations should continue to be made at the local level.

Such changes would not affect Scotland, which has its own planning system and is not covered by the moratorium.