If it is an issue, they don’t talk about it in here.” In a bustling pub on the Kent coast, the manager is telling me about plans for a nearby onshore wind farm as she pulls a half-pint of ale. The regulars, she makes clear, have other things to worry about.
This is one of hundreds of on-the-beat interviews Public First has completed with residents in a wide variety of development hotspots over a period of a few months to find out what they think about new development projects being built locally. Immersive research (which involves speaking to large numbers of people in their everyday surroundings) is the best way to understand the balance of opinion towards hyper-local issues. The conversations hold an important lesson for the Government with regards to its planning reform agenda: keep going.
The UK’s coastal regions are hotspots for energy development. If you visit these areas, you will often see campaign signs opposing proposed plans, and it gives a sense that locals all over the country are up in arms about these projects. Based on the debates raging online and in parliament, there is a sense that organised majorities are actively campaigning to stop projects going ahead. On the surface there is definitely an opposition presence in several towns near proposed development sites – posters appear in shopfronts from the south coast of England to West Aberdeenshire. But as we found out, the pub manager’s view was shared by the majority. They weren’t avidly against development, nor were they particularly for it – they just had other priorities.
On a bright mid-morning in Fife, a young woman sitting on a high street bench made a similar point about a nearby wind farm, casually smoking a cigarette, “Because [it’s] far enough away nobody seems to bother about them. I could understand if it was in your back yard. But no, nobody seems to bother about them. I haven’t heard anybody say anything about it.” Time and again we heard this sentiment; while most residents knew about the biggest local developments and had mixed opinions, usually they couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, and thought renewables were important for the future. Polling conducted by Public First last year in partnership with Labour Climate and Environment Forum (LCEF) of adults living in development hotspots confirms this. Seventy six per cent agree that without renewable energy sources in the UK, we are too dependent on Russia and other countries for energy and two-thirds think the rollout of renewables has been too slow.
That is not to say there is no opposition at all. There is. Only it’s in far shorter supply than most people think and tends to fall into two distinct categories. Firstly, there are those who are against all forms of clean energy infrastructure. Depending on which polls you read, this is roughly one or two in every ten people 16 per cent in our poll agreed that we “do not need to build more renewable energy sources in the UK”. Take, for example, the dogwalker in Kent who thought net zero was the “wrong route” because, in his words, “we’re sitting on top of an oil rich country that’s got gas, that’s got everything that you need to power our electric”.
Then there are those who oppose specific energy developments. This latter group tends to live right next to proposed building sites – the “not in my back yard” Nimby – and are the people who tend to respond to planning applications. A short drive from development sites and this type of opposition falls off a cliff. In fact, throughout our research it was clear: for most people when it comes to specific infrastructure developments, it’s out of sight, out of mind. This is reflected in our development hotspot polling; only one in ten adults in these constituencies say they’ve ever been involved in a campaign to oppose a development or infrastructure project, with the same number being involved in a campaign to support one. Three-quarters of people have never been involved either way.
The Government should keep this in mind as it pushes forward its planning reform agenda. As more planning applications ramp up over the next few months and years, the clamours online, in the media and from the backbenches will only grow louder. But Keir Starmer must stick to his guns on his clean power mission and push back on MPs on both sides of the bench who, wary of their majorities, oppose these projects in their constituencies. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which has made it through Second Reading this week, is a good start. As some have suggested, it rightly plans for those who live next to energy projects to be compensated for bearing the brunt of disruption in service of a national good via money off bills, whilst accepting that these projects have to go ahead.
It’s an accepted truth that the planning system today has enabled campaigners to stymy vital infrastructure projects for years. But what’s less accepted – and more dispiriting – is the scale of the madness: there are far fewer Nimbys out there than is often presented. Opponents of the bill might argue Labour are silencing local voices in their pursuit of planning reform, the truth is that those responding to planning applications do not represent the true spread of local opinion. In reality, our existing planning regime has amplified a small unrepresentative minority for far too long.
This article was originally published as an edition of the Green Transition, New Statesman Spotlight’s weekly newsletter on the economics of net zero. To see more editions and subscribe, click here.
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