With the approach of SAS’s 10th anniversary in January, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all our members, old and new, for their continued support.
2022 has been our busiest year so far with an average of 55 new members joining us every month. This comes as no surprise as the number of wind farm applications continue to increase and the availability of suitable sites (if there ever was such a thing) continue to decrease. This has resulted in significantly more people being adversely affected by onshore wind farm development.
Sas continues to raise awareness of everything that is wrong with wind energy that politicians and the renewable industry would prefer to keep hidden. We do this by writing letters to the press, eg 28 of 31 published this year alone. We have successfully written, been mentioned in or been consulted on, numerous articles published in national newspapers. We are grateful to the journalists who are willing to publish our side of the story. One of the most important and well received articles was The Sham of those pro wind farm polls, researched and written by team member Dr Rachel Connor, exposing the manipulation of statistics to provide the required answers in the polls paid for by the wind industry that they can then publish.
We have helped more students than normal this year with their dissertations. They cover varying aspects of wind energy generation but the majority are interested in the effect it has on communities and wind farm residential neighbours.. The number of people contacting us through the website, asking for help with planning applications has also dramatically increased.
In July, SAS was asked to participate in academic research into the social, environmental and political impacts of renewable energy projects on areas, communities and people located near renewable energy sites. Aileen and Rachel volunteered to take part in a one hour interview which ended up lasting for over three hours! The research is for a forthcoming academic publication for De Gruyter. We will bring you more news on that as soon as it is published.
As Chairman, I was interviewed and took part in discussions relating to wind energy on the Jeremy Vine Show, Radio 4 lunch time news and STV News at 6pm.
Aileen and Rachel continue to attend DPEA Stakeholders’ meetings and among other things, have secured better deals for third parties taking part in Inquiries, particularly those with hidden disabilities such as autism and dyslexia and have raised issues of data protection in publishing identifying details of third parties. Ongoing topics include the provision of a national wind farm map and public representation into setting ‘standard’ planning conditions for windfarms where adverse effects are likely to affect residential amenity. They completed surveys on behalf of SAS on virtual, hybrid and in person Inquiries and lobbied for public representation in enforcement appeals and for the requirement to identify potential environmental disasters and provide tailored mitigation, (as specified by Environmental Impact Regulations -EIRs) both for planning applications and in appeals for new technology, such as hydrogen production.
In 2021, Aileen had lobbied for public authorities to retain free public access to planning documents for longer. DPEA confirmed they would change procedure in 2022 to hold most planning/appeal documents on line for 7 years, with Decision notices available for 30 years. Unfortunately, local authorities may continue to have much more restrictive practices.
Our Webmaster Tim Harrison has had his fair share of problems keeping the website running smoothly (he has had to add extra layers of security!) whilst also acting as Administrator on our Facebook page. Willie gets the best job of all – having the pleasure of posting and discussing the news with everyone on a daily basis.
Stephen has been working overtime, helping to respond to planning queries and keeping us informed on everything from the number of wind farms currently in the planning system to ranking Reporters by the number of s36 wind farms they have refused and consented! The documents are all available in the Resources section of our website.
Aileen’s Petition is due to have its fifth Hearing at the Scottish Parliament Petition’s Committee meeting on 18 January. This has been held back for months due to the shenanigans at Westminster. Thankfully, it has all calmed down and the changes to planning policy in England seem minimal and should not have any effect on our Petition to primarily allow communities in Scotland to have more influence on planning decisions for onshore windfarms.
We have responded to two important Scottish Government Consultations this year; NPF4 and Onshore Wind Policy Statement. Both took weeks of work and we were extremely annoyed to find that the Civil Servants responsible for admitting our response to the Onshore Wind Consultation had redacted large segments of text and a number of important issues. This public consultation sought ‘opinion’ concerning various impacts related to increasing onshore wind in Scotland from the renewable industry in particular. The Scottish Government’s recently published onshore wind policy therefore excluded many important consultation comments made by members of the public. The Scottish Government’s response to our complaint regarding this redaction stated that we had contravened Scottish Government Policies but it included no explanation as to how they came to that conclusion. Our next step is a complaint to the Ombudsman, but the current timescale for even being assigned an investigative officer is a year!
As always, I’d like to thank a number of people who don’t wish to be in the limelight but without whose hard work and dedication, we couldn’t provide information to so many people and those thanks extend to our Experts who give professional advice and guidance on a number of matters and stop us getting into trouble!
Lastly, be proud of yourselves. There are a lot of folk who are brave enough to stick their heads above the parapet and object and contribute as public third party witnesses to planning applications and Inquiries. These are often people who have never spoken in public before and have never had to deal with writing complex inquiry statements and then suffer the ordeal of aggressive and potentially humiliating cross examination by a developer’s well funded legal team. All should be congratulated and lauded for their efforts and bravery.
Here’s to a successful year ahead for us all.
Graham
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