Onshore wind campaign: the story so far

For four years, we campaigned to lift the blocks on onshore wind in the UK. We used a few different tactics to try and budge the rigid resistance that’s blocked us from speedy decarbonisation. On 2 March, the government announced that auctions which include onshore wind and solar would be resumed in 2021 - a move that we took some time to celebrate.

But the expansion of onshore wind still isn’t moving fast enough. In 2022, due to the energy crisis and international conflict, the government wrote an energy security statement and for weeks before it was published, it looked like they were going big on onshore wind. But a cohort of MPs put a stop to it meaning the cheapest, cleanest and most immediate form of energy that could be brought online couldn’t start making the huge positive impact to the people of the UK that we all know it can.

The people of the UK love onshore wind, let’s make sure that government knows and acts on that.

Here’s a blow by blow account (see what we did there?) of our campaign so far - why we started, what we’ve achieved and where we are now. (Spoiler: we’re rallying and we need your help!)

A short story of the government block on onshore wind

The issue of building wind turbines in the UK has been contentious at times for communities living near proposed or actual developments. Given the often rural nature of these communities, onshore wind became an issue throughout the noughties that increasingly animated local Conservative politicians. A mixture of aesthetic disapproval, poor developer behaviour, lack of local ownership and (regrettably) misinformation circulated by renewable energy and climate sceptics came to a head in 2012 when 101 MPs wrote to then prime minister David Cameron. 

The 2012 anti-wind letter called for cuts to financial support for wind farms, as well as proposing changes to planning rules for wind turbines designed to make it far harder to win permission. 

As a result, David Cameron made halting the spread of onshore wind part of the Conservative Party’s election manifesto. In 2015, the new government put this promise into action. Not only did they remove financial support (onshore wind projects were no longer able to bid for contracts to provide the UK's electricity), but they also changed English planning regulations to make it extremely difficult (and expensive) for onshore wind projects to get the go ahead. 

And it worked Since these policies were put in place the number of new applications for wind projects has plummeted, and the construction pipeline has slowed to a trickle. Right when we need it most, clean energy from wind became out of reach.

Why is this such a problem?

Climate change is terrifying - and one of the best and cheapest tools we have for fighting it is being blocked. As Europe’s windiest country, the UK could really cut our fossil fuel dependency if we just harnessed the clean power available to us. So, things needed to change. 

In true Possible style, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. 

So what have we been doing about it? 

Showing the love 

First off, in the autumn of 2016, those of us who love onshore wind made sure the government knew about it. Our petition calling on the government to bring back financial support for onshore wind was signed by thousands of Possible supporters straight off the bat. This, teamed with the beautiful pinwheel stunts that popped up across the country, made it loud and clear: actually, many of us were never fed up with wind power - we love it. 

Our declaration didn’t convince the government to bring the funding back then and there, but the letter we received in response didn’t completely rule out support for onshore wind either. Naturally, we upped our game.

Growing the love

We needed more people to care enough about this issue to make a noise about it, and in 2017 we made that happen. 

Let’s face it, learning about energy policy is not always the most relaxing (or enjoyable) way of spending your free time. As Possible supporters across the country helped us spread the word, at PossibleHQ we were busy making sure our wind warriors had the facts. We simplified policy, summarised research and debunked some of the most common myths that have been harming wind support. 

Some hope 

By the start of 2018, wind support was getting harder to ignore. The Department of Business Energy, Innovation and Skills told parliament they were considering allowing onshore wind to bid into competitions for financial support again. 19,000 of us asked them to go for it. 

This all sounds exciting right? But then, just a few months later, a spanner was put in the works which needed our attention. 

An urgent tangent 

Another block was creeping in the way of onshore wind. In April 2018, the government wanted to write their planning block on onshore wind into the national planning policy framework - basically a collated document of all active planning policy. What had previously existed as a standalone ministerial decree was in danger of being formalised, making it harder to undo.

We quickly brought more than thirty organisations together to call them out, and 37,000 of you joined too by signing our petition telling the government to lift the planning blocks altogether. We persuaded the government to make it possible to ‘repower’ old turbines, which would otherwise fall out of service. While it wasn’t everything we asked for, it will help to stop wind power coming off our energy system over the next ten years. And because of the advances in turbine technology since older wind farms were built, repowering them with cutting edge new turbines actually has the potential to increase clean energy from existing wind sites by 170% over the next decade. Not bad!

The shift to MPs 

Despite the evidence that onshore wind is clean, cheap and popular, the government wasn’t shifting. We had good reasons to think that the government’s energy ministers were keen to bring back onshore wind. But to shift the blocks, they needed to know that the vast majority of Conservative MPs supported them.  So we got to work on the MPs.

We knew that many Conservative MPs thought their constituents didn’t like wind turbines. So in July 2018, we asked people living in the constituencies of the MPs who signed the anti-wind letter all the way back in 2012 what they thought of onshore wind, and found that 74% of them support it.

Even though the numbers were strong, we know that stats aren’t always the best way to engage MPs. So we reached out to Possible supporters living in Conservative constituencies to come to Westminster and make the case for onshore wind in person. At January’s lobby event, 33 Conservative MPs were wised up on wind

Now we had their attention, we needed to give MPs a tangible way to stand up for onshore wind. 

The letter 

In April last year we launched a letter from MPs to the incoming Conservative prime minister replacing Theresa May. Its message was loud and clear - onshore wind is very popular, very effective, and very cheap - and it is time to end the stubborn block on new turbines. But we needed everyone’s help to get MPs to sign it.

Thousands of emails, hundreds of phone calls, and loads of face-to-face meetings later and we’d trumped that anti wind letter. 101 MPs were able to shut down onshore wind. And we got 158 MPs to call for it to be brought back. 

When our letter reached Boris Johnson’s desk, it had been signed by over 150 MPs, including 36 Conservative MPs (six of which had initially signed the anti-wind letter back in 2012 - meaning we’d got them to do a full 180° on wind!).

The manifesto

Once the snap election was announced at the end of 2019, we knew we needed to use the opportunity to influence manifestos. After all, it was an election manifesto that cemented these blocks on wind, so an election manifesto could loosen them. After 1639 wind supporters told their local electoral candidates that onshore wind was a vote-winner, the Conservative party’s manifesto was published - and opposition to onshore wind had disappeared altogether! (Not only that, the other parties' manifestos included ambitious plans to remove the blocks on onshore wind and unleash its potential!).

Getting onshore wind back in the game (yes!)

With the removal of its opposition in the Conservative party’s election manifesto (not to mention Boris Johnson’s recent promise to make the UK the “cleanest, greenest country in the world”) we started 2020 in a much stronger place for onshore wind. But while the elected government is no longer publicly committed to halting onshore wind, we still had to make sure the ban is lifted. So, the team at Possible sprang into gear! We asked you to get your MPs to encourage the government to once again open energy contracts to onshore wind - and an amazing 7,456 of you did!

Our message was heard. On 2 March, the government announced that auctions which include onshore wind and solar would be resumed in 2021! Onshore wind is back in the game - and given that it’s our cheapest form of energy, we thought this will play out pretty well!

Onshore wind and the energy security statement

The government’s energy security statement in 2022 looked like a promising moment for onshore wind. Weeks of conversations made it look likely that they going big on onshore wind. But again a small cohort of MPs put a stop to it. This meant onshore wind that is cheap, clean and could start contributing to the grid quickly was halted. The people of the UK love onshore wind and know it’s good for their wallets and for the climate - we just need to make the government knows and takes action.

Where are we now?

While we’ve made fantastic progress, the fight isn’t over to remove all the blocks on onshore wind. Remember that thing I said about planning regulations right at the start of our story? Well they’re still there - and still amounting to an effective ban on new onshore projects in England.

In 2022, with the energy security statement there was a tiny step forward with a vague promise to consult with communities on new onshore wind projects - but it is nowhere near enough. If we want communities throughout the UK to benefit from the cheap, clean electricity onshore wind provides, we need to remove these planning blocks and give onshore wind our full backing.

Ali and the wind team are coordinating letters being sent to MPs to encourage them to welcome wind. You can write to your MP using this tool. If you’d like to be kept in the loop on what we’re doing next to remove the barriers to onshore wind (and what you can do to help), sign up to our mailing list.