Natural England - Making space for onshore wind energy - delivering a strategic approach in the South East

Making space for onshore wind energy - delivering a strategic approach in the South East

On Wednesday 28th April 2010 representatives of organisations involved in on-shore wind energy developments from across the South East met in London at a workshop organised by Natural England’s South East Region.

The workshop was an opportunity for Natural England to present its recently released guidance ‘Making space for renewable energy’ – assessing on-shore wind development which outlines our approach to assessing onshore wind energy development and can be downloaded from Natural England's publications storeexternal link.

Other organisations gave presentations at the workshop including the South East England Partnership Board (SEEPB), industry and protected landscape unit in order to gain a varied perspectives on the approaches taken to on-shore wind energy, with a particular focus for this workshop on protected landscapes.

The attendees included regional and local authorities planners, councillors, industry, protected landscape officers and consultants.

As part of the workshop there was a breakout session to identify how and in what way we could use this opportunity to inform the approach that will be taken by the forthcoming South East Renewable and De-Centralised Energy Assessment to assessing the capacity and suitability of the region’s designated landscapes for onshore wind energy development.

The session explored the challenges and solutions for applying the suggested approach to assessing the capacity and suitability of designated landscapes for wind energy development.

Wanda Fojt, Natural England manager who chaired the workshop said “ Our workshop was a great opportunity to bring together a wide variety of views around the controversial issue of wind energy and our protected landscapes. The ideas will be particularly useful in informing the regional consultation”.

These regional assessments are being carried out in all English regions following the recent publication of guidance by DECC and aim to provide a consistent evidence base for the setting of regional and local renewable energy targets, as well as informing spatial plan policies. The guidance can be found at the DECC websiteexternal link.

You can view each of the presentations and the break out session documentation in the related articles section of this page.

Select a region