The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)

Through this consultation the Government have heard the strength of feeling and range of views on onshore wind. My right hon. Friend the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary and I continue to believe that decisions on onshore wind are best made by local representatives who know their areas. This will ensure decisions are underpinned by democratic accountability. We agree following our consultation, however, that we need to strike the right balance to ensure that local authorities can respond more flexibly to suitable opportunities for onshore wind energy, contributing to electricity bill savings and increasing our energy security as well as respecting the views of their local communities.

This includes amending the planning tests for proposed onshore wind developments to make clear that suitable locations can be identified in a number of ways, rather than solely through an area’s development plan. Development plans can take a number of years to be produced and adopted and we want to be clear that other, more agile and targeted routes are appropriate: for example, through local development orders, neighbourhood development orders and community right to build orders. We hope that this will mean sites are identified more quickly, speeding up the process of allocating sites for onshore wind projects, and ultimately, as a consequence, more clean and renewable energy is generated sooner.

I can also confirm that we are taking forward changes in relation to the repowering and life extensions of existing renewable energy sites to make clearer the circumstances in which these may be approved.

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