141: NEWS - first nationally significant onshore windfarm starts public consultation

This is entry number 141, first published on 17 June 2010, of a blog on the implementation of the Planning Act 2008. Click here for a link to the whole blog. If you would like to be notified when the blog is updated, with links sent by email, click here.

Today's entry reports on the launch of public consultation on a proposed windfarm in Wales.

The Planning Act regime for authorising nationally significant infrastructure projects places much emphasis on consultation before an application is made.  One of four strands of this process is to provide a period of at least 28 days for general public consultation, which is announced via a notice in a national newspaper and in the London Gazette, the journal of record in the UK.

Yesterday a notice was published in the London Gazette for an onshore windfarm in Wales - the notice is here.  The project is the Nant y Moch windfarm, to be promoted by SSE Renewables (so Scottish and Southern Energy, registered in Belfast, is promoting a project in Wales).  SSE Renewables used to be called Airtricity.  The project is for up to 64 turbines each of 2 to 2.5 MW capacity (so well over the 50MW Planning Act threshold), in an area east of Aberystwyth.  The area covered is mostly in Ceredigion but part of it is in Powys.  The consultation period lasts until 30 July, so just over 6 weeks have been allowed.  The project website is here (for some reason it was originally blocked by our office scanning software as potentially pornographic - the mind boggles). 

I didn't see a notice about the project in a national newspaper yesterday, but if anyone did, let me know.

This is the fifth project to start its public consultation.  No applications have yet been made to the Infrastructure Planning Commission, but from a conversation with representatives of Covanta Energy at the Futuresource exhibition at Excel in London yesterday, their Rookery South Energy from Waste project is on target for an application to be made in mid July.  It could get pipped by Western Power Distribution's Welsh power line project near Neath, as both have launched their public pre-application consultation.

This public consultation does not need to be the first to be carried out, and some promoters are choosing to publish their Statement of Community Consultation (SoCC) first, which is a statement of how the people living near the proposed project will be consulted that is published in a local newspaper.  A recent example of this is Network Rail, who published a SoCC for their Ipswich Chord project earlier this month, but have not yet launched the general public consultation.

Keep up to date with project developments by following this blog and checking out the links entry.

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