The UK was the first major economy to legislate net zero and work is already underway to ensure the UK achieves this by 2050 and thereby eliminate our country’s contribution to climate change. The last Conservative Government worked to decarbonise the UK's electricity by 2035. Renewable technology is an important part of that strategy. This includes committing to delivering 50GW of offshore wind by 2030, alongside the expansion of other renewable technologies.
During the last Conservative Government there were more than 1,500 operational onshore wind farms across Great Britain, generating over 12 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity for the national electric system. In 2020, onshore wind contributed 11% of the UK’s electricity needs, with a total 34.7 terawatt hours (TWh) generated – more than enough to power 18.5 million UK homes for an entire year.
The Conservative Government streamlined planning rules, meaning local areas have a greater say in how onshore wind projects should be considered, ultimately resulting in electricity bill savings and increased national energy security. The measures include broadening the ways that suitable locations can be identified, including by communities and speeding up the process of allocating sites by giving alternatives to the local plan process. This ensured the whole community had a say, not just a small number of objectors – paving the way for more onshore wind projects to come online where they have community support.
However, the Starmer Labour Government’s choice to remove the onshore wind farm moratorium has meant that there are applications coming forward to build large-scale wind farms on protected peatland. This includes a proposal for the Calderdale wind farm in West Yorkshire, despite warnings from academics and organisations like the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust that these projects would release massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Onshore Wind Farms need to be carefully considered as they can have damaging effects on communities if executed inadequately. For example, proposed development right next to the Yorkshire Dales national park. Developments such as this risk affecting local tourism.