Wind industry slams "pitiful" planning delays

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) has today launched a blistering attack on the UK planning system, arguing that many local councils are still subjecting projects to lengthy delays and wasting taxpayers money in the process.

Despite recent efforts by central government to address the log jam in wind farm planning applications and repeated pledges for ministers to tackle the issue, the BWEA claims that onshore wind farms still face an average wait of 12 months to receive a planning decision.

According to BWEA figures, over 60 per cent of major infrastructure projects receive a planning decision from local authorities within the statutory 16 week timeframe, while only five to six per cent of wind farm project proposals are processed within the same timeframe.

"The planning system remains slow… [and] councils decision making processes are still pitiful," said Chris Tomlinson, director of project strategy at the BWEA, adding that recent changes to planning rules designed to streamline the process would have little effect. "The government is now able to intervene to rule on projects that are over 50MW in scale, but there are only two projects in the UK planning system of that scale – the planning bill will not make much difference."

The BWEA believes that despite pressure from central government and polling showing the majority of people support the expansion of wind energy in the UK, councils remain concerned about the degree of support for wind farms and as a result are "sitting on decisions".

Tomlinson said that developers are refusing to wait indefinitely for decisions that can take longer than a year to be made and are increasingly appealing to the planning inspectorate for it to intervene in cases of " non-determination" and make the final decision. Such appeals are successful around half the time, leaving councils, and by extension the tax payer, to pick up the tab for the developers legal costs.

A spokesman for the Local Government Association dismissed the suggestion that councils are deliberately delaying decisions on wind farms, arguing that such decisions could not be rushed.

"There are many factors that a local authority will have to take into consideration and many different views that will have to be considered before a decision on a windfarm can be taken," he said. "Councils are committed to a green future but they are also committed to doing what's right for their residents. The length of time it takes to decide on planning applications for wind farms is representative of the careful balance a council has to strike between the need to move towards greener energy and the need to protect the interests of residents."

However, Dr Gordon Edge, chief economist at the BWEA, said that gaining planning approval for wind projects is more expensive in the UK than anywhere else in Europe, costing onshore developers up to £500,000 and offshore developers up to £1m. He added that such high costs were undermining the UK's attractiveness as a location for renewable energy investors.

To help tackle the problem the BWEA is preparing a planning manifesto, which is it is aiming to launch next month.

Tomlinson said that the manifesto would include proposals to make it easier for developers to share the financial proceeds of wind farms with local communities, increase renewable energy targets for regional development agencies, and overhaul the statutory deadlines for reaching planning decisions to make it harder for councils to "put wind farm decisions to the bottom of the pile".

"We need better carrots and sticks for councils," he said. "At the moment 80 per cent of major projects have to receive a planning decision within 16 weeks, if that was followed by a 6 month deadline for 90 per cent of applications and a 12 month deadline for all projects then we would get rid of these indefinite waits for a decision."