Campaigner awaits confirmation that Plaid Cymru Ministers won’t renege on energy pledge

Martin Shipton

A leading environmental campaigner is waiting for a response from two Plaid Cymru Ministers who she is urging to keep their promise to change energy policy so that the beauty of Wales’ spectacular landscape is protected.

Retired solicitor Lorna Brazell is secretary of the Cambrian Mountains Society, a charity campaigning to promote and preserve the Cambrian Mountains for the benefit of local communities.

In a letter to Adam Price, the Minister for Enterprise, Connectivity and Energy, and Sian Gwenllian, the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning, Ms Brazell wrote: “Mr Price may remember meeting with us in connection with our Senedd Petition for the designation of the Cambrian Mountains as a new Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 2022, when he expressed his personal support.

“Congratulations on your re-election and new roles! We welcome the government’s manifesto commitment to back the development of energy communities. These, in our view, represent the best way for Wales to decarbonise whilst also generating rural businesses, jobs and skills which can be exported throughout the United Kingdom and Europe.

“We also note the further manifesto commitment to favour ‘well-designed, appropriately dispersed projects that balance local impact with efficient delivery, while protecting productive agricultural land’. This contrasts dramatically with the policies of the previous administration which, as Mr Price effectively pointed out in proposing the Community Energy Bill in 2024, very much favoured the desires of investors – largely foreign-owned or backed– and the ‘hard path’ (as Mr Price has put it elsewhere) over the actual interests of the people and communities of Wales.

“Wales has already demonstrated that it can amply generate low-carbon energy to meet its own needs whilst also conserving its essential biodiversity and the other industries upon which rural livelihoods depend, in particular farming and tourism. Before the deployment of the National Grid in the 1950s, some 25,000 micro-hydro schemes powered local homes and businesses in Wales.

“These were deliberately shut down by introducing an extraction fee to make connection to the Grid more economic. To deliver on this manifesto promise, however, it is essential to ensure that the assessment by PEDW [the Welsh Government’s planning arm] of the many applications for large-scale commercial power stations, both pending and those in the pipeline, are assessed for their full implications and impact for Wales.

“From recent decisions, it appears that PEDW and the former administration were treating Policy 17 of Future Wales as mandating a dash to build renewable power overriding all other policy considerations. The approval of Hendy wind farm in Powys which, nearly a decade after construction, blights the Radnorshire landscape generating profits but no power since it remains unconnected to anything, demonstrates the problem graphically.

“In particular, the concept of Pre-Assessed Areas appears to have been set aside entirely, not to mention the need to conserve plummeting and irreplaceable biodiversity. Such an approach was irrational: neither Future Wales nor Planning Policy Wales supports this interpretation. The new precautionary principle – to prevent, rather than mitigate, harm – under the Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Act now precludes pursuing it.

Manifesto pledge

“Building power stations in remote mid Wales, almost as far as one can get in Wales from most energy consumers, does not meet the manifesto pledge of efficient delivery. Long transmission distances result in significant energy losses (and therefore the need for greater total generation capacity) which shorter transmission links would avoid.

“The Independent Advisory Group on the Future Electricity Grid for Wales recommended that the government commission a study comparing high-level cost and technical characteristics for transmission and distribution-level infrastructure, pointing out that no such study has been done. Without knowing how the distribution and transmission of power should best be built, how can any decisions be taken as to the location of renewable power stations?

“Finally, additional infrastructure (roads, substations and access tracks) needed to construct these structures, far larger than any existing building in Wales, and then to transmit the electricity adds to the total cost (both financial and in carbon balance). Opting for additional construction on some of Wales’ most nature-rich land, rather than brownfield sites, is clearly incompatible with a truly precautionary approach. It does not appropriately balance local impact, either as to Wales’ nature emergency or to the future viability of the local tourism economy so critical to mid Wales. The fact that none of the proposals will actually deliver any energy or savings to local consumers adds insult to injury.

“Nor will these projects in fact bring local employment: past experience shows that only low grade, temporary jobs are available to local people; specialist construction and maintenance work is carried out by highly paid specialists based elsewhere who move on to other projects once the work is done. We can illustrate this with a range of concrete examples if required.

“Meanwhile, the years of traffic disruption such projects entail, together with the long-term decrease in meaningful local employment opportunities would further accelerate so many young people’s decisions to leave the area. On the other hand, truly community-owned renewable energy projects, built and operated by local people – the ‘soft path’ – would help to reverse this process.

“Mid Wales’ uplands include huge areas of peat bog whose carbon sequestration function is an essential element in the fight against climate change. Development work for wind farms (and their necessary infrastructure) damages these fragile environments and releases stored carbon. Developers repeatedly argue that peat damage can be mitigated but, as the Welsh Government’s own Environmental Sustainability Directorate has confirmed, the scientific evidence does not support this. Rather than release further carbon which (if honestly accounted for) then needs offsetting, it would be more effective to avoid further peat damage and restore additional areas to actively capture and sequester carbon for all time.

Financial imbalance

“We are very concerned that the vast financial imbalance between local communities and other users of the landscape will, as several Plaid speakers referenced in the debate on the 2024 Community Energy Bill, result in mid Wales bearing much of the human cost of the extractive energy economy but not deriving commensurate economic benefits. The developers have ample opportunity and channels to present their case; while the voices of local people are frequently left unheard.

“We are confident that like us, you have heard loudly and clearly the concerns of the people of Wales as regards the loss of the cherished landscape and farming culture of the Cambrian Mountains to wind farms. Powys, Carmarthen and Ceredigion County Councils have all passed motions in the last 12 months calling for a more considered approach to be taken to the development of commercial renewable power stations in Mid-Wales.

“Ceredigion in particular cited the need to ‘Strengthen environmental safeguards to protect peatlands, water environments, biodiversity, and the special qualities of the Cambrian Mountains, avoiding unintended adverse impacts on ecosystems and landscape visual character.’ Our own Senedd Petition garnered 21,800 signatures, the highest for any non-health petition and the vast majority from local people.

“Ministers, a review of the approach being taken to renewable energy in Wales in practice is urgent, as piecemeal developments driven purely by profit threaten the heartlands of Welsh culture and history. A holistic approach is needed to protect this unique and beautiful environment and the communities it supports. We would very much appreciate a clear statement as to how your administration proposes to apply and/or amend the energy policies set out in Future Wales and PPW, to deliver energy but also enterprise, employment and nature recovery for future generations. I look forward to hearing from you.”

The letter was acknowledged and Ms Brazell was told she would receive a substantive response by May 26. She is still waiting.