TOFT HILL

TOFT HILL APPEAL DISMISSED!

The Secretary of State, John Denham, has followed the recommendations of the Planning Inspector, Ruth MacKenzie, and has dismissed the Toft Hill appeal.

The Secretary of State accepted the Inspector’s recommendation that Toft Hill be refused on the grounds of its impacts on Duddo Five Stones:

Like the Inspector, he considers that the harms of the Appeal C [Toft Hill] scheme would outweigh the benefits, principally because of the significant adverse impact that the turbines would have on the setting of the Duddo Stone Circle SAM. In common with the Inspector (IR349 and 395) the Secretary of State attaches substantial weight to the harm which Appeal C would cause to the historic environment.
[Ibid, Overall conclusions, 30].

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The the Secretary of State’s decision letter and the Inspector’s Report are both available for download here:

Decision Letter (16 pages, small PDF file).
Inspector’s Report (101 pages, large PDF file).

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Press coverage:

Berwick Advertiser, ‘Government dismisses two out of three wind farm proposals’, 21 January, 2010.
The Journal, ‘Two Northumberland wind farms rejected but third allowed’, 21 January, 2010.

‘Serene and remarkable’ Duddo Stones saved from turbines

Berwick Advertiser, 27 January 2010.

‘Duddo Stones, a ’serene and remarkable place’ according to the Government’s planning inspector, has been saved from being overshadowed by giant wind turbines.

‘The secretary of state’s decision to agree with his inspector’s recommendation to refuse planning permission for seven 112m-high wind turbines at Toft Hill has been met with jubilation from opponents of the scheme.

‘Clare Dakin, from Duddo, and a member of ISORES (Inappropriate Siting of Renewable Energy Structures), told the Advertiser: “I’m very relieved, but do have very mixed feelings to be honest.

‘“To have these industrial structures there would have just wrecked the experience of visiting the stones. It would have been an insult to what the whole thing is about and the ancestors that put them there.”

‘But Mrs Dakin expressed her sadness at the decision to allow the Barmoor development to go ahead, stating that it would ‘open the gate’ to future applications for wind farms in the area.

‘She added: “It is just sickening that north Northumberland has been designated as an area suitable for wind farms.”

‘However, she praised planning inspector Ruth MacKenzie for her recommendations and admitted that she was in tears reading Mrs MacKenzie’s report into the reasons for refusal of the Toft Hill application, having put her life on hold to fight against the application.

‘In her report, Mrs MacKenzie said: “My own visits to the stone circle confirmed what many others have described; this is a serene and remarkable place.”

‘In response to arguments heard at the public inquiry into the extent of the ’setting’ of the stone circle, Mrs MacKenzie said: “I find it hard to believe that those who went to the extreme efforts of erecting the stone circle 4000 years ago intended it to have a relationship with nothing more than its immediate surroundings.

‘“The setting, as I experienced it, includes the landscape that can be seen from all directions when standing at the stone circle.”

‘The only reason for the refusal of the Toft Hill scheme, put forward by energy giants RWE Npower Renewables, was the ’significant adverse impact’ the turbines would have on the stone circle, a scheduled ancient monument (SAM).

‘[...]’

THE TOFT HILL PROPOSAL

RWE npower Renewables, part of the German-owned RWE (Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk) power conglomerate, were proposing to build seven 367 ft (112 metre) turbines on the Toft Hill site, a small area of land on an estate owned by an absentee landlord living in Dorset.

The site is less than half the acreage of the ‘Moorsyde’ site and is bounded by settlements at Shellacres, Grindon Rigg, Grindon and by a fast section of the A698. It is close to the scheduled ancient monument of Duddo Five Stones.

The Toft Hill site is less than 2 miles (3 km) from the 'Moorsyde' site:

Visual Impacts

While RWE npower adopted a different approach to Your Energy, the ‘Moorsyde’ developers, by following planning guidelines on consultation before finalising their proposal, their array of 362 ft. turbines would have had the same adverse visual impacts on our landscape and the same damaging effects on local communities and the local economy.

View to Shellacres & Cheviots, W. Edge of Toft Hill Site
(Taken with 6x7 cm. SLR camera using wide angle, 55mm f/4 lens).
© 2001 Don Brownlow Photography.

The Toft Hill scheme would have totally dominated Duddo Five Stones, a Scheduled Ancient Monument of national importance which has been described as, "... undoubtedly the most complete and dramatically situated" [of Northumbrian stone circles]. ¹

Duddo Five Stones, Stone Circle, Looking SW to Cheviots

(Taken with 6x7 cm. SLR camera using wide angle, 55mm f/4 lens)
© 2005 Don Brownlow Photography.

A power station development such as this, while making a negligible contribution to secure power production and even less to carbon saving, would have had a major impact on views to the Cheviots from the A698 which is the major tourist route between Berwick and Coldstream. It would also have had major visual impacts on the Tweed valley and the National Park.

NPOWER IGNORE A.S.A. JUDGEMENT

RWE NPower has been found guilty of ignoring a previous ASA ruling that they should not use misleading images of turbines in a newsletter regarding their Nun Wood project in Bedfordshire.

The ASA report said: “We understood from a previous ASA investigation that we had told RWE not to use photographs of the Llyn Alaw windfarm in Anglesey in future marketing for the Nun Wood site, because the turbines in the Llyn Alaw photograph were around a third of the height of those planned for Nun Wood.

It concluded: “The ad must not appear again in its current form.”

“We told Npower not to use the photograph of the Llyn Alaw windfarm in Anglesey again in marketing for the Nun Wood site, and to ensure that any future images in similar advertising were representative of the site in question.”

NPower used the same tactics here, using an image of small, first generation turbines in a Toft Hill newsletter.

NPOWER HIRES SOUTHERN ACTIVISTS TO STUFF THE RESPONSE FILES

RWE npower used eco-activists from Southern England and Wales to stuff the response files with pre-written letters expressing support for the Toft Hill scheme.

Only weeks before the planning meeting, on 27 and 28 February 2008, two activists were discovered collecting signatures in Berwick. Their table, obstructing half the pavement outside a charity shop in Marygate, displayed a small part of RWE npower’s Toft Hill Environmental Statement. In conversation, they admitted that they were being paid by RWE npower to collect signatures. They were unwilling to give their full names and were remarkably camera shy for people who are usually trying to get pictures of their publicity stunts into the press. During the 45 minutes the writer was present, they did not once mention to people they were approaching that RWE npower were paying for them to collect signatures. Nor did the stall or the pre-written letter they were using bear the name of RWE npower or any other organisation (see below).

Stall with RWE npower’s ES documents, Berwick, 27 February 2008.

This is a dishonest way to operate, in our opinion. When members of MAG collected signatures for a petition, we identified ourselves to people with our full names and told them directly that we were collecting signatures for MAG's campaign. All our forms had MAG’s name and contact details on them.

RWE npower, when contacted by the press, issued a statement claiming that the stall was being run by an organisation called ‘Alliance4Wind’. We googled the name and got the following result: “Your search - Alliance4Wind - did not match any documents.” Very strange - an invisible activist group!

RWE npower‘s biggest fans

A quick bit of research on the internet revealed that one of the signature gatherers is Jonathan Lincoln, founder of the Welsh ‘Sustainable Energy Alliance’, one of myriad small groups of eco-activists. He was listed as a Greenpeace organiser in Porthmadog, North Wales in 2006. At the time of this scam the SEA website gave a list of the wind power projects that they supported; these were: Gwynt-Y-Mor, Lindhurst (nr. Mansfield), Langham and Rhyl Flats. These are all RWE npower proposals.

However, Jonathan’s group subsequently started working for other developers, a press report identified SEA as operating on behalf of Infinergy, with a scheme near Grantham: “The firm pays the expenses of members of the Sustainable Energy Alliance when they visit the Grantham area to lobby for the proposed wind farm at Thackson's Well, near Long Bennington.” The Grantham Journal quotes an Infinergy spokeswoman as saying: “The activity is done by SEA and not by Infinergy.” An interesting distinction!

SEA’s informative style of debate on renewables issues is typified by its T-shirts:

SEA T-shirt.

Misleading the public.

RWE npower’s dodgy support letter.

Nearly every bullet point in this document is misleading.

Nuclear nonsense.

The pre-written letter being used by Jonathan and his friend contains the usual misleading nonsense about nuclear power. It clearly implies that wind is “an alternative” to nuclear power generation. Even Jonathan Lincoln admits in conversation that wind is not a base-load power generator and therefore can not substitute for nuclear power generation. The most rabidly pro-wind report to date, which is invariably referenced by the BWEA, Greenpeace and FOE, states: “It would be unrealistic to assume that wind energy would displace any nuclear capacity,” ('Wind Power in the UK', Sustainable Development Commission. 2005. p35).

Jonathan admitted in conversation that he knew that Denmark, the world’s most intensive wind power producer, actually produces more energy from biomass than it does from wind (75% of the country's renewable energy production) so the first statement is doubly misleading.

Electricity Needs

The ‘electricity needs’ of homes are met by base load power generation from thermal power stations, not from intermittent and erratic wind power generation that seldom follows demand. Wind power generation is not figured into supply calculations by power supply companies, because it can't be counted on to deliver when needed.

The American Wind Energy Association is more honest than our trade body: “You really don't count on wind energy as capacity. It is different from other technologies because it can't be dispatched,” (Christine Real de Azua, Assistant Director of Communications, American Wind Energy Association).

“... load-serving entities know not to count on the full nameplate capacity of a plant, said a market participant who trades primarily in California markets, ‘Wind doesn't help from a keep-the-lights-on-perspective,’ the source said.” (Platts Power Markets Week, 29 August, 2006. See the Windpower Page for more detail of the wind power problem in the real world).

Emissions savings

RWE npower claimed that the Toft Hill power station would displace 27,400 tonnes of CO₂ per year (Environmental Statement, based on 7 x 2MW turbines). Sounds impressive.

But, RWE npower's figures were based on a discredited substitution rate of 860g/kWh, which assumed that wind only displaces coal-fired electricity. Ofgem, BERR, Carbon Trust and the ASA all agree that a grid average figure of 430g/kWh must be used, halving NPower’s claimed savings at a stroke.

RWE npower also use an “assumed” capacity factor for Toft Hill of 26%. This is absurdly high.

RWE npower had not recorded any wind figures for the site when they submitted their application and stated in a Toft Hill newsletter that they were working on a baseline figure from meteorological records of 21%. By comparison, the modern 100 metre high Crystal Rig turbines that we can see 30 kilometres to the north of the ‘Moorsyde’ site are on a windswept, unpopulated moor in the Lammermuirs that is 150 metres higher than the Toft Hill site. Operating without any of the output restrictions that might be necessary to stop the Toft Hill turbines breaking noise limits, they recorded a capacity factor of just 25.2% in 2006.

So, even ignoring the wildly optimistic capacity factor, we are left with an adjusted figure of 13,700 tonnes of CO₂ that would supposedly be saved every year. Still impressive? Well, ecological experts tell us that a return daily transatlantic jet flight emits 520,000 tonnes equivalent per annum. So Toft Hill would, in theory, save 2.6% of the emissions of a single jet. All well and good, you might say, surely this is a contribution to saving carbon emissions?

There is an additional problem - significant numbers of wind turbines need power stations running as back up for their intermittent and erratic power production. It is not possible to switch coal-fired furnaces off and on at the flick of a switch. So they are kept burning and their turbines are not coupled in until needed. So, while it is true that wind power substitutes for some power production, it is not true to claim that wind powered electricity production saves emissions on a direct substitution basis. According to the National Grid, it is likely that the UK would need at least 65-75% backup for wind power stations.

In Germany, huge numbers of turbines (now over 20,000) have had little effect on carbon emissions due to the high level of backup required. E.On Netz operate the grid in the part of Germany with the highest concentration of wind power production; they state:

“Wind energy is only able to replace traditional power stations to a limited extent.

“Their dependence on the prevailing wind conditions means that wind power has a limited load factor even when technically available. It is not possible to guarantee its use for the continual cover of electricity consumption. Consequently, traditional power stations with capacities equal to 90% of the installed wind power capacity must be permanently online in order to guarantee power supply at all times.” [Our emphasis].
(E.On Netz, Wind Report 2005, p. 4)

So, if you actually analyse the figures, it seems that Toft Hill might have, optimistically, saved the equivalent of 0.5% of the emissions of a single transatlantic jet. You might think this is hardly evidence of a significant contribution to “slowing climate change”!

Local employment

Local people have had long experience of the damaging effects of the Toft Hill, ‘Moorsyde’ and Barmoor proposals on investment in tourist enterprises in the area. There were similar negative effect on property prices. The only local employment that “might” have been provided by this scheme would have been a few days haulage and groundwork or fencing. Even this was unlikely, as regional or national contractors usually get most of this work.

The idea that the Toft Hill power station would have boosted the rural economy is, frankly, insulting.