ScottishPower boss says England is a 'godforsaken' for wind farms

17 January 2024 , 15:04

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ScottishPower boss Keith Anderson says the process for building onshore windfarms in England is 'cumbersome' (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

ScottishPower's boss has called England a 'godforsaken' location for onshore wind farms.

Keith Anderson told MPs that despite recent changes in government policies, his company has no plans to build such sites in the country. The energy head said: "If I speak from the part of our company that is a wind farm developer.

"I am not proposing, or planning or looking at developing any onshore wind farms in England. It's godforsaken," he told the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. "The number of sites available aren't that great, the wind yields aren't that brilliant, but the process is cumbersome, slow, difficult and fraught with uncertainty."

This comes just after the Government promised to ease the partial ban on onshore wind in the UK by changing the planning laws. Previously, a single local resident's objection could stop a wind farm project.

However, RenewableUKs Barney Wharton disagreed with the new rules. He told MPs: "The changes aren't sufficient, if you want to build onshore wind in England, we need to see some fundamental changes to, for example, the footnotes in the national planning policy framework."

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Mr Warton, who heads up future electricity systems for the trade body, added: "The vast majority of onshore wind in England will be smaller projects, smaller sites, but if I want to put a small turbine on the roof of my house I am subject essentially to the same planning requirements that someone building a 100-megawatt wind farm would be subject to. That's wild."

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Lawrence Matheson