Guest blog – Blanket bogs and windfarms by Jenny Shepherd – Mark Avery
New petition to amend Planning and Infrastructure Bill and protect irreplaceable blanket bog from big onshore wind farms
A new parliamentary petition, launched a fortnight ago, calls for amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that will ban windfarms on protected peatland in England – click here.
The difference from the previous petition to ban windfarms on protected peatland is that this one addresses climate and nature concerns about the Government’s planning reforms.
The re-launched petition calls on the government to make two amendments to the contentious Planning and Infrastructure Bill, that is near the final stages of its passage through Parliament. It asks that new regional Spatial Development Strategies, introduced by the Bill, should exclude wind farms from being developed on protected peat, and should require all protected peatland to be restored to favourable conservation status. There is only a bit of time left to amend the Bill, as the petition asks. Penny Bennett, from Upper Calderdale Wildlife Network, one of the groups behind the petition, urged:
“There isn’t much time for people to sign the Petition, as the Bill has nearly completed its Parliamentary process. Whether or not you signed the first version of the Petition, please sign and share this one!”
The Petition has been prompted because Calderdale Energy Park (formerly Calderdale Wind Farm) is the first proposed Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project onshore windfarm on protected peatland in England. It is now well into the formal pre-application stage of the new planning process for NSIP onshore windfarms. If approved, it could well set a national precedent.
Calderdale Energy Park’s proposed site is Walshaw Moor in West Yorkshire, above Hebden Bridge and Haworth. Walshaw Moor has the highest possible conservation designations for its internationally significant, irreplaceable blanket bog, other priority protected peatland habitats and plants, and an assemblage of red-listed birds and other protected wildlife.
The government has introduced additional planning protections for peatland in its updated National Policy Statement EN-3, that it consulted on in May. But they fall short of adequate protection for peatlands ’ecological integrity. Among other things, they fail to take into account the importance of shallow peat as well as deep peat.
But it’s not just deep peat that requires protection. For compelling biodiversity, climate, water quality and flood risk mitigation reasons, shallow peatland should not be damaged by wind farm developments, any more than deep peat.
The new draft planning guidance, to be made law by the end of the year, ignores this. It appears to condone damage to shallow peat from big windfarm construction. Following NatureScot guidance for building windfarms on peat, it recommends big windfarms on peatland should build on shallower peat.
The IUCN UK Peatland Programme has challenged this, pointing out that the NatureScot guidance is not supported by the literature. They conclude, “The ideal sites [for onshore windfarms] would generally be situated on mineral soils.” This is also the thinking behind our Parliamentary Petition. The shortcomings of the new draft planning protections for peatland are the reason for our re-launched Parliamentary Petition.
In Calder Valley constituency – the location for the proposed Calderdale Energy Park on Walshaw Moor – the Petition is effectively communicating Calder Valley constituents ’concerns to their MP.
On Friday, the Calder Valley MP Josh Fenton-Glynn emailed constituents that he has asked for a meeting with the Minister of Planning and Housing about how the government is updating its planning guidance for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project onshore windfarms on peatland. His email said that he is asking the Minister for certainty about a recommendation that onshore wind farms should not be built on peatland.
Meanwhile, the more Petition signatures the better – especially from Labour constituencies. There have been 7K+ signatures nationally in the first 2 weeks of the petition. Adding significantly more by the end of this week would support the Calder Valley MP in his meeting with the Minister and increase pressure on the Minister to amend the Planning and Infrastructure Bill as the petition calls for.
The Minister, Matthew Pennycook MP, has already conceded in a House of Commons Committee debate on amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, that blanket bog as an irreplaceable habitat needs protection from aspects of Part 3 of the contentious Bill. In Calder Valley, we think it is time for the Minister to change words into action and amend the Bill so that blanket bog (and other irreplaceable habitats) are effectively protected from Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project developments.
Please sign and share this petition if you agree. There is more information about the re-launched Parliamentary Petition on the Save and Restore Walshaw Moor website, click here.
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