Government refuses planning permission for £3.5bn windfarm due to visual impact, in further blow to UK green energy industry

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The government has turned down an application to build a £3.5bn windfarm off the south coast of England in another major blow to the green energy industry under the Conservatives.

The decision on the Navitus Bay project off Dorset was unveiled by Lord Bourne, the energy minister, even as 13 leading financial investors urged the chancellor to adopt a more positive stance on renewables.

Bourne ruled against the 121 turbines, each 200 metres high, being erected, arguing they would undermine the local tourism industry, which benefits from the nearby Jurassic Coast, a Unesco world heritage site.

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“Careful consideration has been given to the application, and the planning and energy issues involved,” said a Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) spokesperson.



Bournemouth tourism management board (BTMB) said it was delighted with the decision. “We warmly welcome the government’s decision to reject Navitus Bay, which would have damaged one of the UK’s most environmentally sensitive landscapes and hit local tourism business hard,” said Des Simmons, the BTMB chairman.

But Maria McCaffery, chief executive of the wind industry lobby RenewableUK described it as a missed opportunity. She said: “It’s deeply disappointing that Navitus Bay has been refused consent. This is a missed opportunity as it means we’re failing to capitalise on the UK’s superb offshore wind resource and the economic benefits it brings.”

Doug Parr the chief scientist at Greenpeace said the decision made no sense given the government’s attempts to push through shale gas fracking in other environmentally sensitive areas.

“While David Cameron talks about his big plans to combat climate change in the run up to the climate negotiations in Paris, there is a complete vacuum of any real action or plan. In fact, this decision and the decisions to cut solar and onshore wind subsidies run in completely the wrong direction.”

The red light was not unexpected and comes after furious lobbying against Navitus by Tory MPs in Dorset, local authorities and the National Trust. It will further alarm renewable energy industrialists and campaigners, given a recent government halt to subsidies for any more onshore windfarms, plus some aid to solar power and energy efficiency schemes.

It is a significant setback for the windfarm developer, EDF, which is separately struggling to tie up a final agreement with Chinese backers that would enable it to proceed with the building of the £24.5bn Hinkley Point C nuclear plant.

Meanwhile, investors including Legal & General, the Trillion Fund and the Church Commissioners have sent a letter to George Osborne, urging him to keep up the pace of decarbonising the economy.

It is not the first time that plans for an offshore windfarm have been declined but it is very rare.

The only other example was when the then energy secretary Ed Davey shut the door on the Docking Shoal scheme off Norfolk. That decision was blamed on the number of Sandwich tern seabirds that could have been caught in the spinning blades and killed.