Behind the wind turbine war is a lack of policy and joined-up thinking

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/06/policy-on-wind-turbines-inconsistent

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Another week and another war of words is being waged over our green and pleasant land. Last Thursday, Prince Charles told the Oxford Farming Conference that the countryside is "as precious as an ancient cathedral". Former poet laureate Andrew Motion, current president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, railed against the government's relaxation of planning rules that is threatening "our spiritual connection to woodland and wilderness".

Nowhere is this battle more heated than over the subject of wind turbines and the changes to the national grid they require. Myriad campaign groups are fighting to stop these vast machines looming over their neighbourhoods.

This fight is increasingly seen as dividing along party lines. Tory MPs, alarmed by their constituents' fury, have been defending their backyards, but this time against a proved weapon in the global fight against climate change. Ed Miliband crystallised this division from the other side in 2009 when he said it is as socially unacceptable to oppose wind turbines as not wearing a seatbelt.

A perceived left and right divide also splits the coalition. In October, Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat secretary of state at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, gave his Tory junior minister John Hayes a public dressing-down for daring to suggest Britain is at saturation point with turbines. Last week, Hayes got backing from planning minister Nick Boles, suggesting the emergence of a Tory ministerial alliance against the Lib Dems to resist the march of the turbines.

Despite this, by Davey's own department's assessment, onshore wind turbines do have a significant place in Britain's generation of renewable energy. In 2011, onshore wind generated enough to power 2.4m homes, or just under 4% of all electricity produced. By 2020, it is estimated that onshore wind could provide enough to power up to 7.7m homes at an estimated half the cost in comparison with offshore farms.

The question is how to balance that contribution with a genuine desire to conserve our countryside. The reality, as Samuela Bassi and Naomi Hicks of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment argued last year, is that "the choice between more affordable electricity and local environmental protection is ultimately a societal and political one". That requires a more intelligent and nuanced debate that acknowledges that the framing of wind turbines as a left versus right issue is flawed. For while Tory backbenchers might not like them, it is worth recalling that it is a Conservative chancellor, George Osborne, who is pushing their construction in some of the wilder parts of Britain. Nor is it the supporters of the left who are raking in the subsidies attached to wind farms. Instead, turbines have provided a lucrative fillip for landowners with unprofitable upland estates.

The reality is that the complex and inconsistent planning issues surrounding approvals for onshore wind turbines should worry you whatever your political persuasion. Take the proposed Sallachy wind farm in Sutherland and Caithness. Developers acknowledge the site is predominantly peat bog, a vital store of carbon. There is compelling scientific advice to the effect that such areas should be left alone. It seems bizarre that, on this logic, millions are being spent on restoring peat bogs in Derbyshire, while developers are allowed to dig them up in Scotland for turbine developments. All of which stems from the lack of a coherent vision from government about how many onshore turbines should be built, coupled with a recognition of the cumulative impact that such developments do have.

Yet planning officers should not have to take the rap for the fundamental errors of successive governments. At the heart of the issue is the fact that Britain's track record on energy efficiency is pitiful. Indeed, last month in a barely noticed but short-sighted decision, local government minister Eric Pickles scrapped plans for homeowners to be obliged to include energy-efficiency measures in house renovations. Such measures have been in place for years in Germany, which is decades ahead of the UK in energy efficiency.

Wind turbines undoubtedly do have a place in Britain – not least because climate change is the greatest threat to our countryside – but our identity as a nation includes a real connection to the places we know and love. That demands a comprehensive and consistent policy over renewables and the siting of onshore turbines.