Transport secretary Grant Shapps has played down the idea that there is a schism within the Conservative party over onshore wind farms, saying that his colleagues all support the concept of local consent.
During her short tenure as prime minister, Liz Truss attempted to relax planning rules around onshore wind farms that were first brought in during David Cameron’s premiership in 2015.
However, Truss was soon replaced by Rishi Sunak, and the latter had pledged during his leadership campaign to keep the effective ban - active from 2015 - in place.
Now, a number of Conservative MPs have thrown their backing behind an amendment to the Levelling Up Bill, tabled by former Tory cabinet minister Simon Clarke.
The amendment would overturn the planning block and allow for new wind farms to be built onshore more easily where there is consent from residents.
The Levelling Up Bill has already faced delays to its progress through Parliament, after an amendment was tabled relating to government enforced housing targets.
The BBC reports that around 30 Conservative MPs support the onshore wind amendment, including former prime ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, the COP26 president Alok Sharma and former party chair Jake Berry.
The Telegraph also reports that levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, supports an overhaul of the tough planning constraints, while the BBC adds that the Labour party has indicated that it will back the amendment.
However, the transport secretary has suggested that everyone supports the idea of “local consent” and that the amendment would empower local residents by giving them “the final say” on any wind farm developments in their area.
He therefore played down the suggestion that the backers of the amendment were rebelling against the government, due to the fact that everyone was in favour of empowering communities on the issue.
Shapps said: “We've been very clear, regardless, local communities need to both support and ideally see the benefits from this.”
Number 10 stopped short of giving an indication as to whether the PM might eventually support planning reforms around onshore wind.
Sunak has previously suggested that the government wanted to prioritise offshore developments rather than onshore wind farms.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “The prime minister has talked at great length about his views on where the focus should be on renewables, where he is talking about building more wind turbines offshore in order to boost energy security and also the importance of ensuring communities support any action the government takes on renewables.”
When pressed on whether Shapps words suggested a U-turn was coming on blocking onshore wind development, the spokesman said: “I'm sure he's pointing to the rules that are already in place: to allow for consultation.”
Photo by Thomas Reaubourg on Unsplash
