North Yorkshire, Cumberland and Buckinghamshire are among the areas most likely to see new wind farms over the next decade after Labour lifted the effective ban on onshore wind development.
The Conservatives imposed stringent planning rules in 2015 that made it extremely difficult to get planning permission for onshore wind farms, meaning only a handful of small ones have been built since.
Now, Labour has radically loosened restrictions in a move it hopes will open the floodgates to dozens of much larger new developments all over the country.
“This game-changing decision is a crucial step in the Government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030,” said Chris Hammond, chief executive of UK100, a national group of locally elected leaders campaigning for cleaner air and lower emissions.
Its analysis suggests Lancaster, the Cotswolds, Stroud and Worthing are among the areas with the strongest backing for onshore wind from their councillors.
There are very few concrete plans for building new onshore developments at the moment after nearly a decade of inaction – while wind developers are typically keeping quiet about the sites they are considering at this point for commercial reasons.
But researchers and wind farm developers have identified areas of the country that are best suited to wind farms, due to factors such as population density, wind levels and existing land use.
A spokesperson for the energy generation arm of energy firm Octopus told i: “While we can’t share the specific locations due to commercial sensitivity, we’ve got projects in our pipeline spread across the country, including in Yorkshire and the Humber, the North West, the North East, East England, the Midlands, and the South West.”
Renewable UK, which represents the wind power industry, also earmarked Yorkshire the Humber as a potential site for new wind farms, as well as Devon and Cornwall, Lincolnshire and some parts of East Anglia and areas in North east and North West of England.
Top 10 areas with onshore wind power potential
Analysis by Friends of the Earth found the local authority areas with the most potential for wind farms are:
- North Yorkshire
- East Riding of Yorkshire
- West Lindsey (Lincolnshire)
- East Lindsey (Lincolnshire)
- Cumberland
- West Northamptonshire
- Buckinghamshire
- Wiltshire
- Shropshire
- Westmorland & Furness (Cumbria)
Source: Friends of the Earth/Exeter University
However, while the wind industry welcomed Labour’s decision to lift the effective ban, experts cautioned that it could be some time before we see new wind farms springing up in the English countryside.
This is partly because planning and construction can take up to seven years – depending on their proposed size, the length of time in the planning system awaiting a decision, and whether a grid connection is available.
Furthermore, the workforce needed to design and install them and make the parts has fallen sharply since 2015.
Yael Spencer, of renewable supplier Good Energy, said: “We often speak to prospective renewable developers to provide support on initial feasibility and financing criteria and are definitely expecting an increase in those queries from prospective wind farms now.
“But it’s a little early just yet, and there may be a bit of a ‘headwind’ for the onshore wind surge just due to the length of time restrictions have been in place.
“Expertise and skills have been lost and people have moved on.”
An analysis in April by Exeter University’s Environmental Intelligence Centre for Friends of the Earth identified 2,198 square kilometres of land that looks most suitable in England for onshore wind, an area 1.5 times the size of London.
This amounts to 1.7 per cent of all England’s land.
If it was filled with onshore wind farms it would comfortably supply England’s entire electricity needs – although Friends of the Earth said it is “not advocating for this due to the abundance of offshore energy potential also available”.
The group’s analysis found that each area would need to be thoroughly researched before building a wind farm as we “haven’t been able to map unsuitable areas due to radar interference for aircraft or migratory routes for birds” and to make sure there aren’t any unforeseen impacts on nature.