East Riding of Yorkshire Council Shame - Spaldington Airfield Approved

Congratulations to Coriolis Energy and Falck Energy on the consent for their 5-turbine Spaldington Airfield wind farm scheme. yes2wind are delighted to have helped in the process by encouraging local residents to express their support with a letter. This resulted in dozens of genuinely unique letters being written and sent to the council. We understand from Coriolis Energy that these were of significant help at the appeal hearing.

On February 3rd 2010, Richard Bowen - on behalf of yes2wind - published the results of an investigation into the amount of public money (i.e. money that you and me pay in our council taxes) the East Riding of Yorkshire Council had been effectively 'wasting' on its serial rejection of wind farm applications. This was after the council had lost its fifth consecutive wind farm application appeal.

At appeal, the independent planning inspectorate (which is essentially the same inspectorate, working in the same way, irrespective of the government in power) examines an application in great detail with reference to planning law and both local and national interest. By overturning so many decisions made by the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, the inspectorate has effectively deemed the council to have been incorrect in the way it has consistently rejected wind farm applications...and not without cost to local rate payers! Richard Bowen, through the Freedom of Information Act, found out that the appeal costs to the council amounted to around £30,000 (on average) for each of the three most recent applications on record. (There are other costs connected with the application process which also need to be added on!)

yes2wind intend to investigate further, but we believe that this is now the 7th or 8th wind farm application that has been given approval on appeal. On the basis of information already obtained, that would represent between £210,000 to £240,000 of public money that has been spent by the council defending its rejection of wind farms.

At a time of such financial hardship for many, yes2wind asks how such apparent wastefulness can be justified?

Evidence from RenewableUK suggests that - over the lifetime of a wind farm - £1m per installed Megawatt is paid into the local county economy by way of contracts and jobs. For Spaldington Airfield that represents up to about 12 or 13 million pounds!

In summary: the council has had to pay out tens of thousands pounds as a consequence of rejecting the wind farm proposal, and it would have also denied up to £13 million pounds of inward investment to the county had the rejection not been overturned on appeal.

It's hard to understand why the good people of Yorkshire are taking it all on the chin – probably because the cost of each rejection isn’t sufficiently well known.

But enough is enough! It's high time that those responsible should account for what is surely an indefensible waste of hard-earned rate payer's money! Their continued rejection of wind farm applications needs to stop!