Public engagement and community opposition to wind energy in the UK

Marco TortoraUniversity of Florence, Italy

Sustainable Systems and Energy Management at the Regional Level:Comparative Approaches

Sustainable systems and energy management at the regional level: comparative approaches / Marco Tortora, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61350-344-7 (hbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-61350-345-4 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-61350-346-1 (print & perpetual access) 1. Energy policy--Environmental aspects. 2. Energy development--Environmental aspects. 3. Energy consump-tion--Environmental aspects. 4. Sustainable development. I. Tortora, Marco. HD9502.A2S925 2012 333.79--dc23 2011017286

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Chapter 16

INTRODUCTION

In the United Kingdom’s electricity sector, Gov-ernment strategy has undergone a recent shift towards the development of low carbon energy resources from renewable forms of generation and the renewal and expansion of nuclear power. The low carbon energy policy agenda is driven by environmental restraints on the use of fossil

fuels to achieve CO2 reduction targets and hence mitigate long-term anthropogenic climate change, as well as concerns over rising energy costs and the nation’s long-term energy security in the face of dwindling non-renewable reserves. The move towards the development of low-carbon energy systems within the European Union was codified through the European Parliament’s resolution of the “Road Map for Renewable Energy” in 2007.The Road Map called on the European Com-mission to present a proposal for a legislative

Matthew CottonUniversity of Leeds, UK

Community Opposition and Public Engagement with Wind Energy in the UK

ABSTRACT

In the UK, wind energy is an important component of a renewable energy strategy designed to mitigate climate change and secure long term electricity supply. However, wind developments are exceedingly controversial amongst locally affected citizens. This chapter focuses upon the socio-political aspects of wind farm siting in the UK, examining the issues of Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) protest, the at-titudes of developers towards ‘the public’, and the policy and practice of public engagement in wind siting decisions in light of recent changes to the domestic planning legislation for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-344-7.ch016

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framework for energy from renewable sources, referring to the importance of setting targets for the shares of energy from renewable sources at Community and Member State level. The resul-tant Directive 2009/28/EC sets a 20% overall EU renewables target, which is broken up into differentiated legally binding national targets for Member States. In the UK, the energy policy agenda towards renewables has been refined in successive Energy White Papers (Department for Trade and Industry 2007; Department for Trade and Industry 2003) that have emphasised the ad-vantages of shifting towards low-carbon resources, and in legislative changes, notably The Climate Change Act, that has established legally binding ‘carbon budgets’ aiming to cut CO2 emissions by 34% by 2020 and at least 80% by 2050 primar-ily through investment in energy efficiency and renewable generation technologies (Department for Energy and Climate Change, 2009). Within the electricity sector specifically, targets have been set to provide 40% of UK electricity from low carbon sources by 2020, thus displaying a clear commitment to substantial increases in the requirement for electricity suppliers to sell renewable electricity; encouraging research and innovation in renewable energy technologies; and to creating favourable conditions for bring-ing renewable generation capacity to the market.

Of the range of low-carbon energy technolo-gies available, this chapter focuses primarily upon the expansion of onshore (and to a lesser extent offshore) wind capacity, as these technologies are frequently identified as the most technologically viable and cost-effective energy options (Mor-thorst & Chandler 2004; Meyer, 2003), and as such, represent core components of sustainable future UK electricity generation capacity (Department for Trade and Industry 2007; Strachan, Lal & von Malmborg, 2006). In exploring the implementation of wind power within the electricity sector, this chapter focuses upon some of the social aspects of the planning process to achieve a more sustain-able electricity system, namely, how the impacts

of wind developments produce locally unwanted social and environmental effects and how this leads to public opposition to proposals. The chapter then goes on to examine the problem of public opposi-tion to energy infrastructure developments in terms of both the policy and practice of wind developer ‘engagement’ with locally affected communities, and how this in turn affects siting decisions within the renewables sector. Though the focus is upon wind energy, the discussion presented within this chapter is pertinent to a range of other large scale low-carbon electricity sources, notably tidal, nuclear, large scale biomass and hydroelectric projects, where land-use for power generation generates public and political controversy within the planning system for infrastructure projects.

BACKGROUND - WIND ENERGY DEVELOPMENT IN THE UK

The first wind farm in the UK was constructed in Cornwall in the Southwest of England in 1991, and since the early 1990s wind energy has gained prominence within the UK renewables sector. The former Labour Government in particular placed great emphasis upon wind development, provid-ing a £250million business support programme between 2002-2006, the intention of which was to improve the success of the UK renewables sector and challenge the internationally dominant competitors in the US, Denmark, Germany and Spain (Alvarez-Farizo & Hanley, 2002; Meyer & Koefold, 2003; Strachan & Lal, 2004). In 2007, wind energy overtook hydropower to become the largest renewable generation source in the UK, contributing 2.2% of the UK’s electricity supply, with onshore wind comprising the bulk of this output. Overall wind energy has seen the fastest growth of any renewable technology globally, and this trend is forecasted to continue, due to falling technology costs and international commitments to sustainability and energy security (Junginger, Faaji & Turkenburg, 2005). As such, the UK

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Government’s Renewable Energy Strategy sets out ambitious low-carbon electricity targets, and the bulk of this renewable capacity is likely to stem from wind developments.

The UK’s wind energy policy framework focuses primarily upon investment, and can therefore be characterised by what is often termed a ‘technology-push’ strategy of renewables de-ployment. As Strachan and Lal (2004) suggest, within the renewables sector in Europe, much of the academic literature and policy analysis has focussed either upon the techno-scientific aspects of the generation sources (in particular reference to wind energy), or else upon policy frameworks that emphasise both ‘supply-push’ strategies to en-courage research and development programmes in renewable generation, or ‘demand-pull’ strategies associated with regulatory mechanisms to improve the uptake of renewable energy technologies in the market (see in particular Meyer, 2003; Meyer & Koefold, 2003; Loiter & Norberg-Bohm, 1999). However, a technology-push policy framework is insufficient to successfully implement future wind farm developments on the scale that is necessary to achieve the low-carbon electricity system, as the focus upon technology development and market forces excludes a comprehensive analysis of the likely social impacts of new wind farms, the power of stakeholder actors to either facilitate (or more often de-rail) planning processes and deficiencies within the institutional arrangements for local community involvement decision-making on sit-ing for new wind projects. There is now general agreement within the social scientific literature that some of the most limiting factors in the growth of wind power capacity are not technical or economic, but rather socio-political - concern-ing institutional and regulatory structure (Wolsink 2000), the local political and planning arrange-ments in place for developer implementation of wind farm siting (Toke, 2005; McClaren & Loring, 2007), local community acceptance of specific schemes, and the ‘engagement’ practices of the industry, whereby developers include or exclude

local actors in siting processes (Devine-Wright, 2005; Wolsink, 2007; Bell, Gray & Haggett, 2005).

PUBLIC OPPOSITION TO WIND ENERGY

It is clear that, overall, previous research into pub-lic acceptance of wind energy in Europe through national-level surveys has shown that there are high levels of support amongst ‘the general public’ for the implementation of wind develop-ments (McClaren & Loring, 2007; Braunholtz, 2003). In contrast, however, support for wind energy at a local level is often seriously reduced when specific projects are proposed. Wind farm proposals frequently run into public opposition, and site-specific developments often catalyse the formation of organised protest groups in locally affected communities. Wind power is unlike other energy generating technologies that are often op-posed on the basis of their environmental impacts. It bears none of the radiation risks associated with nuclear energy, nor the eco-systemic disruption of large-scale hydro-power projects. In terms of CO2 emissions, wind energy is much greener than comparable fossil fuel based sources. The Danish manufacturer Vestas presents a lifecycle assess-ment of a typical 2.0 MegaWatt onshore wind turbine stating that in an average location it will generate around 113,000 MWh during a 20 year period, thus reducing the environmental impact of approximately 93,000 tons of CO2 compared to energy production at a coal-fired power plant (comparing CO2 emissions per kWh produced) (Vestas, 2009). Though the environmental benefits are clear, the development of wind power remains publicly controversial in the UK and in other Euro-pean countries (Warren et al., 2005). This is partly due to concerns that are often raised about visual intrusion, noise pollution and local environmental disturbance. More fundamental, however, are concerns about the devaluing of natural amenities and the industrialisation of the countryside and

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hence the transformation of natural landscapes into what Pasqualetti et al. (2002) term ‘landscapes of power’. As Edge (2006) suggests, the strong emphasis on reducing generation costs drives developers to the very windiest sites, which tend to be areas of high landscape value and hence areas where wind proposals would be more prone to local community objection. Though often the policy discourse suggests that public opposition could be reduced by siting wind farms offshore to reduce visual impacts, a number of commen-tators have suggested that this in fact will likely lead to opposition just as strong; in part due to the relatively larger size of offshore developments, coupled with broader social effects on the use of coastal areas and potential environmental impacts on marine ecosystems (Ellis, Barry & Robinson, 2007; Firestone & Kempton, 2007; Jay, 2008).

Aside from the local environmental impacts of onshore wind there are also a series of important institutional barriers which affect wind power implementation, and elevate public opposition to proposals. Wolsink (2000) states that barriers exist towards the implementation of wind energy irrespective of positive attitudes amongst the population. In the UK one significant institutional barrier is the predominantly top-down policy style of wind siting, whereby projects are usually initiated from an approach that is described in the facility siting literature as the engineer’s and planner’s ‘fallacy’, whereby there is a tendency to underestimate both task-completion times and local opposition to proposals by operating under the assumption that the technologies are broadly acceptable to the public at large (O’Hare, Bacow & Sanderson, 1983). What is clear, is that public opinion and the political rhetoric surrounding dif-ferent forms of objection and public opposition to wind proposals have developed into key conflicts between regulators, developers and objector in-terests, each positing different portrayals of the environmental and economic benefits and costs of wind energy, and varied claims of public support to endorse their respective positions in the political

debate (Devine-Wright & Devine-Wright, 2006). Thus, high levels of public acceptance shown within national surveys on public attitudes to wind power are usually interpreted as primary indica-tors of support within society, however, concrete projects continue to suffer from what is often called Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) syndrome due to local opposition to specific proposals (McClaren & Loring, 2007; van der Horst, 2007).

THE NIMBY PROBLEM

The ‘NIMBY’ concept is pertinent to discussions of wind power siting procedures. It refers to the protectionist attitudes and oppositional tactics ad-opted by community groups facing an unwelcome development in their locality. Notable examples include landfill sites, hazardous waste facilities, prisons, low-income housing, airports, and indeed onshore and offshore wind farms. The NIMBY concept has become an iconic representation of citizen reactions to wind proposals, which characterises project opponents as being able to recognise the societal value of an unwanted facility so long as it is not planned for near to where they personally live. The typical characterisation of NIMBY opposition is that residents will assert that these facilities are noxious, polluting or in some other way economically and/or environmentally damaging, will concede that the facilities are in some way necessary, but assert that they should not be built near to their homes, schools or places of work or worship.

In some respects the NIMBY label seems an apt moniker for local protest over controversial facility siting proposals. For example Kuhn’s (1998) study of nuclear waste repository siting reveals a correlation amongst those who sup-ported a proposed facility in principle, between perception of risk and acceptable distance of the facility from their place of residence, implying that proximity to unwanted facilities is a crucial aspect of their public acceptability on a local

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level. Devine-Wright (2005) in particular notes, however, that there is a general assumption within the literatures on the NIMBY concept (particularly in relation to wind energy) that those living in closest proximity to developments are likely to have the most negative attitudes, when in fact the empirical evidence is less conclusive. Though the aforementioned study by Kuhn shows a correlation between proximity and acceptance of unwanted nuclear facilities, Krannich, Little, and Cramer (1993) researched the NIMBY phenomenon re-lating to the Yucca Mountain repository project in Nevada and found that opposition and concern are strongest in the communities farthest from Yucca Mountain. Similarly, some studies of wind energy have shown that individuals living closer to developments actually tend to have more positive attitudes towards development projects in com-parison to those living further away (Braunholtz 2003, Warren et al. 2005, Devine-Wright 2005).

A more fundamental problem than the ‘prox-imity assumption’, is that the use of the NIMBY label by developers and planners in positions of power over wind siting, reifies the concept of public opposition as being related either to a selfish attitude amongst protestors who fail to see the ‘bigger picture’ of the benefits of wind energy to society, preferring instead to focus on a purely local, neighbourhood-level protectionism. Some have thus posited that a clearer understanding of why NIMBYism occurs, and the types of argu-ments used in to support such attitudes, can be used to counter self-centred arguments against propos-als and thus overcome the associated planning problems from public opposition (Dear, 1992). Recent developments in the academic literatures on NIMBYism have, however, focussed more thoroughly on how the label is problematic for both developers and local community interests, as it is often used by proponents of development projects as a means to discredit all forms of project opposition, regardless of motivation (Davy, 1996; Burningham, 2000; Cotton & Devine-Wright,

2010b; Devine-Wright, 2009). NIMBY labels are used in a pejorative sense, and the term is often strategically deployed as a rhetorical device to characterise non-technical specialists affected by wind farm siting as worried, irrational, ignorant of scientific technical facts and risks, self-interested and concerned primarily with the protection of local amenities and household property values. This characterisation of local people persists even when specific evidence for these attitudes is lacking in the political discourse surrounding siting proposals. Inherent to the NIMBY label are assumptions often made by technical specialists about the emotive behaviours of public actors and the characterisations of their opposition as lacking in technical sophistication. However, this again is unsupported by evidence, as studies have shown that public testimony from non-expert individuals and groups around facility planning is often of comparable technical sophistication to that of the experts (Martin, 1996). Rather than an accurate characterisation of public opposition, the social representation of local community activists as ‘nimbies’ is really a means to discredit opposition groups in the political processes of wind develop-ment planning, by undermining their credibility as legitimate stakeholder actors (Luloff et al., 1998; Burningham, 2000; Wolsink, 2000; Burningham et al., 2006; Devine-Wright, 2009).

Even if one were to accept this characterisation of citizens opposed to wind farm siting at face value, so-called NIMBYism is neither necessar-ily irrational nor an unethical behaviour as some planning theorists and practitioners have sug-gested. Individuals behave rationally by rejecting personal disadvantage in order to achieve advan-tages for others, and where personal disadvantage is instigated by an external organisation that will ultimately profit from localised environmental change, acceptance of a developer’s wind farm proposals can be considered supererogatory, i.e. virtuous ‘beyond the call of duty’ (Peterson & Hansson, 2004). Also, when members of a local

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community are required through planning practice to accept social and environmental impacts that are not imposed on others, they have a legitimate right to question why they and not others have been selected to bear such burdens.

Despite the problems associated with the use of the NIMBY label, it persists within policy and planning discourse, influences the ways in which wind developers conceive of ‘the public’ and thus how to communicate information and engage with them on the substantive issues that underlie their opposition (Burningham et al., 2007, Cotton & Devine-Wright, 2010a, Cass & Walker, 2009, Barnett et al., 2010). As Burningham et al (2007) suggest, understanding how technical specialists construct the concept of different public actors is crucial in any attempt to understand how develop-ers engage with local communities, and how they either involve or exclude them from wind siting decisions. This is important because the processes of engagement with local communities in wind farm siting are crucial to ensuring project success. This is illustrated by Toke’s (2005) multi-method policy analysis of wind farm planning in England and Wales which identifies strong associations between the outcome of local authority planning decisions, the opinions of local planning officers, the opinions of parish councils where the proposed wind farms are to be sited, and the opinions of landscape protection groups. Toke (ibid.) found in particular, that the attitude of people in the immediate vicinity of proposed wind farms is the most important influence on decisions made by local authorities. The views of the locally af-fected ‘public’ are important to the development of new wind energy projects, and therefore both the attitudes of developer organisations towards local communities and the institutional planning arrangements for decision-making within siting processes will critically influence the future suc-cess of low-carbon electricity generation technolo-gies in the public realm.

THE ‘DEFICIT MODEL’ OF COMMUNICATING PLANNING DECISIONS

By examining the how developers and technical specialists conceive of local community actors it is often revealed that they characterise them as being ignorant about scientific facts; as polar-ised for-or-against technological developments; demanding of zero risk scenarios; basing their opposition upon non-scientific, ethical or political factors; or else as simply the malleable victims of a distorting and sensationalist media (Cotton & Devine-Wright, 2010a; Marris et al., 2001; Burn-ingham, Barnett & Thrush, 2006; Burningham et al., 2007). Together, these ideas about lay public actors are characterised by what Wynne (1982) terms ‘deficit model’ assumptions about public understanding of science and technology that are linked to concepts of scientific and technical literacy, i.e. the ability to understand scientific and technical matters ‘correctly’ in the manner in which it is communicated by experts (Bucchi, 1996). Deficit model thinking construes the public as being opposed to wind developments due to an inadequate knowledge base – and therefore fundamentally misunderstanding the risks, envi-ronmental and economic benefits involved. This is, in turn, based upon what is termed bounded rationality, whereby the so-called objective as-sessments of experts involving ‘hard’ evidence such as costs, safety and environmental perfor-mance are prioritised over ‘soft’, ‘subjective’ and ‘irrational’ public values (Bell, 1999; Forester, 1984; Grove-White et al., 2006). Thus, to put it crudely, technical specialists are viewed by other technical specialists, planners and politicians as knowledgeable experts, and the public as essen-tially ignorant lay actors. By working under this assumption, wind development planning becomes a process of trying to put out more and better com-munication of expert knowledge to the public in order to allay misinformed, so-called irrational objections, and encourage them to adopt a more

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positive attitude towards technical proposals (Royal-Society, 1985).

This way of characterising the public has often led to what are termed ‘Decide-Announce-Defend’ planning strategies (Wolsink, 1996). The D-A-D model involves the communication of ‘facts’ about wind energy to ‘the public’ in order to rectify a perceived knowledge gap that exists. By doing so it is expected that this will encour-age the rather vaguely defined group termed ‘the public’ to trust the decision-making capabilities of those experts in charge. The underlying as-sumption is that if the public has more knowledge then this will automatically lead to a more posi-tive attitude towards the technology in question. D-A-D involves action planning on the basis of expert judgment followed by the communication of information to non-specialist citizens primar-ily through public relations. The difficulty lies in that the communication of risks, social costs and environmental impacts can never be a solely intellectual process of transmitting knowledge from the ‘experts’ to the ‘lay people’ (Douglas, 1986). When a policy decision is announced the planners and decision-makers then end up defend-ing the project against the near inevitable public backlash that occurs from confused and distrustful public actors (Wiedemann & Femers, 1993). The mechanism through which this defence occurs is most often using the exact same public relations techniques. Applying this approach in building widespread trust and confidence in a siting process is therefore fundamentally flawed.

The communication of information about renewable energy projects is an important facet of achieving public acceptability of proposals, as unfamiliarity with technology is one factor in motivating public opposition (Sustainable Energy Ireland, 2003, Upreti & van der Horst, 2004). How-ever, the method through which this is achieved is important to realising project success. To give a different renewable energy example, Upreti and van der Horst’s (2004) study of biomass generation in the Southwest of England shows that although

local community opposition is related to public unfamiliarity with biomass energy, other factors such as relative public trust or mistrust in the developer organisations and the rigid stance of developers in adopting a ‘there-is-no-alternative’ attitude contributes substantially to the failure of the project to gain planning permission. The one-way communication of information from the developer at the top, to the public at the bottom, is inadequate for achieving public acceptability. As Devine-Wright (2005) suggests, there is often little opportunity for the locally affected public to have genuine involvement in wind energy decision-making, and so more attention must be paid to the social and psychological dynamics of public involvement in development processes in order to improve the success level of wind energy planning outcomes.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In reference to the problem of the ‘deficit model’ assumptions about opposition to wind farm plan-ning, there have been significant socio-political changes to the ‘interface’ between energy policy and the public, as the concept of public and stake-holder engagement (PSE) has become increasingly institutionalised in both public and private sectors. PSE in environmental planning more broadly, has become established in sustainable development practice. The rise in PSE follows the establish-ment of Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration. Principle 10 states that “environmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level”. This Principle later formed the basis for the the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in En-vironmental Matters, that legally reinforces the right of citizens to be involved in environmental management decisions. The Aarhus Convention,

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as it is known, was adopted on 25th June 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus at the Fourth Ministe-rial Conference in the ‘Environment for Europe’ process. It is an environmental agreement that links environmental rights with human rights, asserts that the achievement of sustainable development as only possible through the involvement of all affected stakeholders, reinforces government accountability and environmental protection, and crucially it focuses on interactions between the public and public authorities in a democratic context – stressing the importance of government accountability, transparency and responsive-ness (UNECE, 2004; Palerm, 1999; Hartley & Wood, 2005). In effect, The Aarhus Convention grants the public additional rights and imposes obligations on public authorities to actively provide information to affected stakeholder ac-tors, instigate public participation measures in environmental protection and planning processes, and provide access to legal representation where conflict occurs – thus establishing a legal form of environmental justice. In theory at least, this codifying of an environmental right to participate results in increased opportunities for citizens to become involved in environmental planning and so promulgates a change in the way that energy infrastructure development and resource use ob-jectives are achieved.

In parallel to the legislative changes that em-phasise the roles of public actors in environmental planning, is a more practical realisation amongst planning practitioners that broad public accep-tance cannot be based upon the tacit assumption of trust in technical expertise and the assurances of developers. A number of prominent figures in technology policy and environmental plan-ning professions have recently called for ‘better’ forms of PSE to be implemented. Quintessen-tially ‘better’ forms of PSE are those by which non-technical actors may form adequate personal opinions and preferences through informed de-liberation and public debate on issues that may affect them (Hagendijk & Kallerud, 2003). The

concern presented in this chapter, is that in the absence of adequate public involvement in the siting processes for new wind energy installations, decision-making will solely reflect the choices of central, institutional actors rather than those that are affected (Kleinman, 2000). This will likely lead to public opposition, political controversy and eventual planning failure; which is bad for communities, developers and for the achievement of national renewables targets.

In general, the goal of effective PSE is to assert democratic processes of planning control through open deliberation upon project proposals in the public sphere. It fundamentally differs from the one-way transmission of information from experts to the public through D-A-D public rela-tions exercises. The goals of PSE are, however, multi-faceted and often self-contradictory. PSE is often used by developers primarily as a strategic mechanism in an attempt to speed along planning processes by alleviating public opposition, organ-ised protest, or the instigation of confrontational public inquiries. At other times PSE is used by local government agencies, academic researchers and community organisations as a more ‘bottom-up’, community-focussed means to evaluate public interests and present counter-arguments to the proposals themselves. A gap exists between these two strategic motivations for PSE, which complicates the issue of how best to communicate information and deliberate openly upon planning processes in a public forum.

The efficacy of PSE lies in its potential to legiti-mise planning decision-making. PSE mechanisms are important tools for fostering greater levels of community support and for resolving stakeholder conflicts. This can serve as a means to restore trust in developers and planning institutions (Bloom-field et al., 2001) and render decision-making processes and resultant policies as legitimate in the eyes of both decision-makers and affected lo-cal community actors (Beierle & Koninsky, 2000; Cohen, 1989; Grunwald, 2004). Moreover, there is the potential to improve the quality of decisions

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through collaborative participation, in a way that solves complex, contentious problems about site selection (Innes & Booher, 2004) by including not only stakeholder and local community preferences and values, but also by eliciting important informa-tion pertinent to the planning process from ‘lay experts’ (Petts & Brooks, 2005; Wynne, 1996), thus making technical decisions socially robust.

PSE is the practical means through which deliberative democratic principles are applied to decision-making. The move to deliberative democracy is based upon the principle that the hallmark of any democratic system lies in the right of people affected by a decision to have an opportunity to participate in some way in the making of that decision (Richardson 1983). What differentiates deliberative from representa-tive democratic principles, is that representative democracy emphasises the legitimacy of elected members, or else direct participation is in the form of citizen voting on proposed policy measures (for example referenda). Deliberative democracy, by contrast, emphasises how citizens conceive of policy-making legitimacy in terms of opportunities to participate directly in decision-making forums. Collectively the nature of decision-making in planning has undergone a shift towards the latter approach to decision-making control; a rhetorical shift sometimes labelled as a ‘deliberative turn’ (Dryzek, 2000). The deliberative turn to some ex-tent instutionalises PSE in the planning processes of government departments. Documents from the former UK Labour Government administration illustrate this deliberative turn, highlighting the importance of local community involvement as an ‘essential component’ of planning processes for sustainable development (DETR, 1999), and as being fundamental to an effective planning system (DTLR, 2001). The value of public participation in planning has often been stressed as a means to meet strategic objectives such as achieving ‘lower costs, fewer delays and less uncertainty in the planning process’ (Department for Trade and Industry, 2007).

In practice, however, the legislative and policy context of the UK planning system paints a less rosy picture. Beddoe and Chamberlain (2003) assert, that the planning system is frequently seen by developers as an obstacle to concrete proposals for wind development. It is necessary, therefore, to assess the recent changes to the UK Planning system affecting wind developments and to evaluate the role that public actors play in shaping wind siting decisions.

CHANGES TO INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING IN THE UK

Within policy circles there has been a long-standing debate over how to improve the planning system, particularly with regard to the implementation of large scale infrastructure plans. The planning prob-lem lies in the time and cost involved in bringing applications to fruition. Research by the British Wind Energy Association has shown that, in the period 1999-2005, the time taken to reach a final decision on wind energy applications steadily increased, taking an average of a year in England and longer in Wales, compared to 13 weeks for other types of major developments (Tomlinson 2004), and more recently the renewable energy trade association RenewableUK’s annual ‘state of the industry’ report (RenewableUK, 2010), highlights a fall in wind farm developments being agreed at the planning stage by local authorities across the entire UK from over 50% in 2008-9 to only one in three for 2009-10. Trade bodies such as these have often cited the planning system for infrastructure development as the primary obstacle in the implementation of wind projects, and a concern that planning and development is moving at too slow a pace to meet renewable energy targets.

The former Labour Government recognised the inherent problems of the previous planning system for infrastructure builds and set forth a Planning White Paper published on 21 May 2007.

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The core components of the White Paper were later adopted in the Planning Act 2008. At the heart of the Planning Act 2008 was the formula-tion of the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), an independent expert committee to oversee development consent for infrastructure projects. The IPC formally began operations in October 2009, receiving the green light from then Min-ister for Housing and Planning, John Healey, to begin receiving applications from developers as of March 2010. The first applications came from transport and energy infrastructure developers including numerous wind farm proposals. IPC chairman Sir Michael Pitt describes the change as the long-overdue shake-up of the planning regime for national infrastructure, marking the separation of policy-making from decision-making for the first time in UK planning history. The IPC promises the delivery an efficient and equitable planning process, alongside estimated taxpayer savings of £300 million annually, by bringing eight former consent regimes into one and reducing the time taken to make a decision from an average of 100 weeks previously, to less than a year (Pitt, 2010). Applications for development consent are decided by the IPC within a framework of National Policy Statements on each form of infrastructure (such as energy, airports etc.), which when completed, then undergo public consultation and parliamen-tary scrutiny. Once this process is complete, the government will take account of the responses and the views of parliament before designating the statement. If the relevant national policy statement or statements are in place, then the IPC subsequently makes the decision on each ap-plication it receives; if not, then the Secretary of State will make the decision (Pitt, 2010). It must be stated that, at the time of writing, the UK’s coalition Government has stated its intention to abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) and to return decision-making power on Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects to Ministers. The Government must legislate to abolish the IPC, which it is expected to do in the

Decentralisation and Localism Bill due to receive its first reading in Parliament in November 2010. The Government intends to replace the IPC with a Major Infrastructure Planning Unit that would be part of the Planning Inspectorate. This Unit would carry out broadly the same functions as the IPC, but final decisions would be made by Ministers based on the recommendations of the Unit (CPRE, 2010). Until the IPC is abolished it will continue to receive and process applications.

What is likely to remain largely unchanged under the IPC’s successor, is the role of PSE. The IPC assures “heavy front loading” of public consultation, meaning that developers need to demonstrate consultation with local people on their proposals and that they have acted upon public feedback prior to submitting an application to the IPC. Following application submission, the IPC has 28 days to accept or reject the proposal. Inadequate consultation from the developer is described as a criterion for the rejection. If an application is accepted, the public will be able to register at the appropriate time to provide their views in writing to IPC, and to participate later in open-floor hearings and to cross-examine evi-dence (Pitt, 2010). In principle it appears that the IPC process offers ample opportunity for public involvement, however, it is unclear how this pro-cess of public involvement is to be independently facilitated (given that consultations are developer-led), whether public representatives will be able to access the IPC open floor hearings (they may be allowed to attend, but the timing and location of these hearings will influence their accessibility, and public knowledge about the IPC process is low). A more fundamental criticism is that although local community actors have the opportunity to comment on proposals, they are not allowed to question the need case for new infrastructure as this is prescribed in a National Policy Statements, and hence will actually have little influence on the outcomes of decision-making over wind farm siting. Hence this separation of planning from policy-making raises questions around whether

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land-use change is primarily a technical activity or one which involves the making of political choices (Booth, 2009). Some in the popular press have suggested that the IPC fundamentally challenges the legitimacy and democratic accountability of land-use decision-making (Benjamin, 2007), in part because it is an unelected body, and also because the planning process doesn’t devolve power to local communities to influence changes local environment.

EXAMPLES OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH WIND ENERGY

Though developers are required to show ‘adequate’ public consultation prior to their submission of applications for consent, within the Act itself, the provisions for public involvement are described by Edwards (2008) as being expressed in ‘apple pie and motherhood’ language, i.e. in terms that are broadly agreeable but that lack specificity as to how public actor responses are incorporated in practice. What this means is that developers have engaged in a variety of different practices, some of which appear to provide reasonable opportuni-ties to engage with public actors, and others that simply follow the D-A-D model, rehashed under the rubric of consultation. For example in the pro-posed wind farm in Clocaenog Forest in Wales, the developer RWE npower renewables first employed a range of communications methods, such as newsletters, a website, public exhibitions, direct liaison and community liaison groups to provide information. Following the preparation of a Statement of Community Consultation (a statu-tory requirement of the IPC process) in partnership with the relevant local authorities, RWE npower renewables then hosted public exhibitions over 5 days at local venues surrounding the development area (within the towns of Clawddnewydd; Ruthin, Denbigh and Cerrigydrudion) and established the Clocaenog Forest Community Liaison Group (CLG), facilitated independently by Quatro (a

public relations company). The purpose of these measures was to enable local representatives to meet and discuss the progress of, and ask ques-tions about the Clocaenog Forest proposal. The group was designed to be non-partisan and has its own independently-elected Chair and Vice Chair. The group consists of 150 representatives of lo-cal groups, organisations and bodies interested in the forest are regularly invited to take part in its meetings, which occur broadly every quarter and at strategic points in the development process.

In contrast, the company Airtricity’s proposed wind farm development at Nant y Moch in Wales takes a similar but less public-centred approach. Airtricity began by appointing a bilingual commu-nity liaison officer, as the point of contact for media and local community information requirements. Subsequently a Community Liaison Group was formulated from representatives of local councils, and community development agencies, in contrast to RWE renewables’ group that incorporated local community representatives and broader stakeholder and environmental groups. Airtric-ity’s CLG co-drafted a community engagement plan, which involves a multi-tiered community consultation process, based upon information provision through newsletters, website updates and successive rounds of public exhibitions, whereby Airtricity states that community consultees have the opportunity to provide feedback, and that they “will keep a record of all comments received, will consider all reasonable suggestions and will show these comments either were used to modify the development in any way, or dismissed on reason-able grounds” (Airtricity, 2009). What the second example lacks in comparison with the first, is direct opportunities for community deliberation in an independently facilitated forum, instead ‘the public’ have the opportunity to speak with developer representatives and provide written feedback on proposals (which may or may not influence the project outcomes). It is clear that the IPC process allows developers flexibility in the range of consultation techniques that are

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used, and it does not seek to be prescriptive. However, this can be disadvantageous to local communities and developer organisations (some of whom have never undertaken public engage-ment activities of this type before), because it introduces uncertainty into the process and leaves the methods of consultation largely in the hands of developer organisations which are themselves unlikely to devolve power to local communities and relinquish decision-making control beyond that which is prescribed.

CONCLUSION

It is clear that the issue of wind energy develop-ment is a socio-political minefield for developer organisations and the planning body that oversees the development of projects, whether it is the expert body the IPC, or else a Minister respon-sible for major infrastructure within a Planning Inspectorate. Recent planning reforms are borne from a political debate that construes the plan-ning application process under the old system as burdensome and time consuming. The political rhetoric surrounding the Planning Act 2008 has been couched in the language of urgency, that infrastructure developments are crucial to the sustainable development of the UK economy. Thus applications must be brought through the system quickly and efficiently in a way that incorporates public consultation early on in the application stage, to avoid the costly process of hearing evidence in public inquiry (a process which at its worst has lasted 10 years or more). There are, however, a number of problems with the model that has replaced the old system.

At the heart of the changes to planning are inherent assumptions about public attitudes to local wind developments. The NIMBY problem as it is known, is one that developers use to socially construct local communities opposed to wind developments. The preferred strategy to overcome this so-called problem, is to try to

convince locally affected communities of the tech-nical sophistication, environmental and economic benefits of onshore wind energy projects in order to generate support and provide an application to the IPC that will ‘pass’ and receive development consent. However, developer organisations have frequently shown that they construe local com-munities as irrational and self-interested nimbies (Burningham et al., 2006; McClymont & O’Hare, 2008; Cotton & Devine-Wright, 2010a; Wolsink, 2000), and so the major obstacle is to change this mindset and to encourage developer organisations to deal with citizens as heterogeneous, technically sophisticated, possessing a range of expertise and capable of identifying with a range of envi-ronmental concerns, not limited to the reduction of CO2 emissions. Though this chapter does not present a full comparative case study analysis, it appears that wind energy developer engagement with local citizens in the pre-application process under the IPC varies across different projects. Though some organisations have shown initiative in setting up Community Liaison Groups involv-ing independently facilitated and chaired groups representing diverse local community and envi-ronmental interests, other developers have opted for a consultation model based upon engagement with locally elected officials, statutory stakehold-ers and limited opportunities for public feedback through questionnaires, written feedback and website responses. These feedback mechanisms are often limited to brief comments or scale item surveys (agree ↔ disagree) on pre-existing ques-tions posed by the developers themselves. Thus, the consultation process potentially suffers from ‘framing effects’ whereby the process of consul-tation reflects developer representations of the challenges that local communities face from new wind developments.

The IPC process and associated PSE mecha-nisms are new for many renewables developers and so it is likely that organisations will learn best practice measures in public engagement by comparing their applications to the success of

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others. However, I propose that the process of public engagement needs to be both clearer and stronger than that mandated by the IPC in its current form, if it is to be successful. Currently the IPC does not provide statutory obligations for developers to give local community partici-pants any semblance of decision-making control, instead it encourages them to adopt a process of response to public feedback on predefined options and concerns presented by the developer itself. This type of consultation can actually serve to exacerbate public opposition rather than defuse it as it places citizens in the position of reacting to proposals rather than providing input to their development, forcing participants to engage with predefined plans for siting, rather than providing opportunities to holistically evaluate the project’s feasibility, or present alternative options (Gariepy, 1991). What this means is that the opportunity for citizens to question the substantive issues affecting their community is lost, and when this occurs, they are likely to seek alternative opportunities to halt the development process in line with their wishes, whether through exerting political pressure upon locally elected representatives, or else engaging in organised protest or direct actions to halt the development. As MP John Gummer states in the Telegraph newspaper, “if people feel they’re not being listened to, they will not put up with it. There will be so much anger that it will actually take longer, politicians will have to intervene anyway or Swampy1 will rule” (cited in Gilligan 2009).

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Decide Announce Defend: A means of com-municating project plans after a decision has been made. This type of public relations mechanism frequently evokes vehement public criticism.

Deficit Model: An mistake commonly made by planners and technical specialists, whereby they assume that public opposition to projects can be alleviated by ‘better’ forms of communicating project plans.

Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC): Independent commission charged with overseeing development consent for Nationally Significant Infrastructure projects including renewables proj-ects, electricity and gas transmission networks, roads, airports and ports.

Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY): A common way in which project developers depict local community opposition to project plans, where local people are assumed to be concerned solely

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with protecting local places from the siting of unwanted facilities.

Planning Act 2008: UK legislation changing the planning regulations for infrastructure devel-opment in the UK. The Act sets up the Infrastruc-ture Planning Commission to oversee applications for Nationally Significant Infrastrcture Projects.

Public and Stakeholder Engagement: A process of two way communication between developers, locally affected communities and partner organisations.

ENDNOTE

1 Swampy (real name Daniel Hooper) became a nationally known figure after spending a week in a complex series of tunnels dug in the path of a new extension to the A30 road in Fairmile in Devon

Public engagement and community opposition to wind energy in the UK

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