Wind power and ‘the planning problem’: the experience of Wales

Abstract

Across Europe, spatial planning has acquired an important role in steering wind power to more socially acceptable locations. However, the tendency for planning decisions to become a focus of opposition has also led to planning being represented as ‘a problem’ in meeting renewable energy targets. Using Jessop's dialectical relationship between modes and objects of governance, this paper seeks to understand why certain states are inclined to resolve ‘the planning problem’ for wind through strengthened national control. The case study is the Welsh Assembly Government's 2005 planning guidance on renewable energy, which superimposes centrally-determined ‘Strategic Search Areas’ for large-scale, onshore wind farm development onto local decision-making processes. Motivations for adopting this approach reflect the UK's centralizing planning culture, and beliefs that local planning processes will not yield sufficient sites to meet targets for wind power expansion. Responses to this planning guidance suggest that it may stabilizing the regulatory conditions for large-scale wind investment in the short term, in some parts of Wales, but faces a number of points of vulnerability in the longer term. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.