We are very much looking forward to tomorrow's onshore wind conference in Edinburgh.  The conference programme illustrates both the range of issues, and opportunities, the industry continues to face, from grid to bio-diversity net gain and community engagement. Planning, as ever, remains front and centre.

It is 7 months since NPF4 was adopted by Scottish Ministers. The document (unlike the original draft) was generally well received by the onshore wind industry. 

Policy 1 of NPF4 directed decision makers to give “significant weight” to the global climate and nature crises, and the key energy policy (Policy 11) is intended “To encourage, promote and facilitate all forms of renewable energy development onshore and offshore”. NPF4 also designated renewable energy developments over 50MW as national development.

The enthusiasm was not unqualified, and we have been here before, with warm words and supportive policy at a strategic level, not necessarily translating into project consents.

It is still early days (in planning terms at least!) for NPF4, but a number of recent decisions from Ministers would indicate NPF4 is having a positive effect. 

Of the 9 onshore wind applications determined since NPF4 was adopted, 7 have been consented. Five of those applications would likely have been approved under the previous policy. But in two cases (Clashindarroch II and Shepherds Rig II) the Reporters changed their original recommendations of refusal to ones of approval in response to the change in policy.

Projects will be considered on their own merits, and NPF4 does not mean that every proposal will get consent – the 2 refusals post NPF4 demonstrate this. 

That said, there are similarities in the Reporters’ approach at Clashindarroch II and Shepherds Rig II that will be of relevance to other proposals. 

In both cases, the Reporters had originally concluded that significant local landscape and visual effects outweighed the benefits of renewable energy such that consent should be refused. However, the updated policy framework caused them to revisit that balancing exercise. At Shepherds Rig II the Reporters concluded, “In our original report, we found that the significant effects on the area’s recreational resources should be given significant weight, to the extent that they outweighed the aims of delivering renewable energy. In the updated policy context, we find that the proposal’s obvious contribution to renewable energy targets causes the benefits as a whole to now clearly outweigh the significant landscape and visual effects.” The Reporter at Clashindarroch II took a similar approach, “The significant adverse landscape and visual effects predicted to result from this development have not changed since I completed my original report but the fact that these effects are either localised or do not impact on a protected landscape affects the weight that should now be attributed to these effects in the planning balance. This has altered my consideration of the proposals”.

It is inevitable that commercial scale onshore wind farms will have some impacts, but those must be weighed against the benefits of renewable energy and its role in helping address the climate crisis. These decisions offer encouragement that NPF4 has shifted (tilted?) the balance towards renewable energy development. As the Reporter noted in his report on the Kirkan windfarm, “I find the new policies do ratchet the need case upward, at least relative to the acceptability of the proposed development’s landscape and visual effects and the related appropriateness of its design”

It will be interesting to hear tomorrow how others are finding the brave new NPF4 world.