Stephen A. Jay - At the Margins of Planning: Offshore Wind Farms in the United Kingdom

AT THE MARGINS OF PLANNING

Series Editor: Adrian McDonald

Based on the Avebury Studies in Green Research series, this wide-ranging series still covers all aspects of research into environmental change and development. It will now focus primarily on environmental policy, management and implications (such as effects on agriculture, lifestyle, health etc), and includes both innovative theoretical research and international practical case studies.

Offshore Wind Farms in the United Kingdom

Stephen A. Jay
Sheffield Hallam University, UK

First published 2008 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Stephen A. Jay 2008

Stephen A. Jay has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 2007042665

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.

ISBN 13: 978-0-8153-8765-7 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-3511-6292-0 (ebk)

This book is an exploration of some of the questions that arise for the planning system at its maritime borders. It is at the shoreline that the jurisdiction of planning authorities in the UK generally ends and consents regimes that bear little relationship to the practices of planning take over. But the concerns of planning cannot be easily contained on land, and authorities that look onto the sea are likely to claim a legitimate interest in the shaping of marine space. However, their participation is problematic and symbolic of the wider difficulties involved in governing the seas. Although these issues are not new, they are brought into sharp relief by the current pressures that are being exerted upon the seas, especially around the coasts of densely developed nations like the UK. The particular topic that has given rise to this study is the relatively sudden emergence of proposals for offshore wind farms around the UK coastline, which has turned the attention of a number of planning authorities afresh to their maritime settings. Moreover, this topic touches upon the handling of renewable energy schemes, which introduces additional tensions and further complicates the practice of planning at these margins. These issues are approached in this book by means of an empirical study of the involvement of planning authorities in the development of a number of the first phase of major offshore wind farms in UK waters.

The title of this book is partly autobiographical in that I set about this subject not with a strongly established planning background but out of interest initially in the advent of offshore wind farms as a major new source of renewable energy. My interest then expanded to the potential role of planning for the integration of these schemes into their physical and human setting, and i then became intrigued by the dilemmas faced by coastal authorities as they attempted to address the difficulties of influencing the shaping of their marine hinterlands. My hope is that others will continue to explore the implications of the intensifying pressures for the use of the seas, not least for the practice and theory of planning.

By way of acknowledgements, I wish to express my thanks to the planning officers and other staff of local authorities who gave considerable help for the study of offshore wind farm proposals on which this book is based.

This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother Babs Frith who inspired me to think creatively about the place of industrial infrastructure in the landscape (not least by her suggestion that pylons should be adorned by Clematis !)

Stephen Jay
New Mills, 2008

The exploitation of wind for the generation of electricity has become widespread in many countries over the last two decades as part of the drive to convert to renewable forms of energy production. To date, most wind farms have been located on land, but some have now been sited in shallow marine waters, especially in northern Europe; Denmark led the way by developing the worlds first offshore wind farm in 1991. A major expansion of offshore wind energy is now taking place, representing a new departure for the renewable energy sector. Although locating wind farms offshore presents greater technical challenges, it also promises fewer physical constraints than on land and access to more reliable and powerful winds. The United Kingdom has recently entered this new phase of wind energy development and is now seeing the large-scale development of wind farms in waters close to its shores (BWEA online). Moreover, the UK, with its long coastline and with strong prevailing winds across its surrounding seas, has an almost unequalled potential for exploiting this resource (Troen and Petersen 1989).

The UK government and the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are giving strong policy backing to the expansion of the offshore wind sector. This falls within the wider context of the importance being attached to renewable sources of energy, as announced in recent national reviews of energy policy (DTI 2003, 2007). Increasing the generation of electricity from renewable sources is now being given serious attention, not least because it reduces reliance on fossil fuels, diversifies the energy mix and improves the security of energy supply. Perhaps even more significantly, renewable energy is seen as an important mechanism for reducing the carbon emissions associated with conventional sources of energy and has therefore become a key component of meeting international obligations on combating climate change. In the UK, as elsewhere, these concerns have been translated into ambitious goals: an initial target of 10 per cent of the UKs electricity coming from renewable sources by 2010 has been extended to an aspiration of 20 per cent by 2020 (DTI 2003). A market mechanism, known as the renewables obligation, has been put in place to encourage the widespread development of renewable energy schemes.