Our broken planning system for renewable energy developments

Grace Lloyd, local democracy reporter

Every time an application for a large wind farm or solar farm is submitted to the Welsh Planning Department (PEDW), a long and complicated process is kicked off.

Many Welsh government bodies and other official organisations have to be consulted for each application. The organisations consulted typically include the local council – planning experts, ecologists, highways experts. Then engagement is required with additional organisations – Natural Resources Wales, NATS (National Air Traffic), CADW. Fire and Rescue services, the Health and Safety Executive, MOD and more.

Individuals from each of these organisations are required to read the wind or solar farm developer’s application – usually hundreds of pages long. Then they have to report back to PEDW with their findings and expert opinions.

It is frequently a tactic of renewable energy developers to plan a very large industrial renewable energy park and then split it down into multiple smaller developments – at least on paper.

Multiple applications

Each of these smaller developments is designed to link together with the others and share grid connections and roads, forming a huge energy park. However, they are submitted as multiple applications.

The reason developers break down their applications like this is to make these smaller developments look more friendly, with less impact to the local views, biodiversity, habitats and the communities they are going to impact. The extra effort in creating all this paperwork benefits the developers. A single smaller, less intrusive development is more likely to gain the consent of PEDW, than a huge industrial park.

Now think of all the people that were involved in the single application, outlined above, and multiply that number by 3, 4 or even 5 times, as this is how many smaller applications may be created by splitting up a large renewable energy park. So now, multiple reports are required for each of the smaller applications, often from the same individuals from the council, Natural Resources Wales, NATS and so on.

These public servants are spending months of their time working on multiple applications from renewable energy developers in Wales, when they should really be working on one single large application. And while they are doing this, they are kept from doing their day jobs of helping to run the country.

Inefficient 

This is ridiculously inefficient and a dreadful waste of public money. Large renewable energy projects fall into the category of Developments of National Significance (DNS). Where DNS renewable energy applications are adjacent to each other, and intend to share grid connections, roads, or other infrastructure, it is surely obvious that they should be submitted as the single development they really are. This would save Welsh Government a huge amount of money in admin costs. It would also mean that proper environmental assessments could be carried out, covering the whole area to be built on as a single habitat, not just in pockets.

Timing is also an issue. Not only are DNS applications often submitted for multiple, smaller developments, when they could just be issued for one. They are also often issued concurrently, so a small area will have two or three active applications in progress at the same time.

For example, over Christmas and New Year 2024-25, in one small area, two applications were launched a week apart. One was for a solar farm and the other for a wind farm on Mynydd Maen, between Newbridge and Cwmbran. The consultees (that big list of government personnel, and more) had around 6 weeks to read two sets of documentation and write their reports – all over Christmas and New Year.

Next, over Easter 2025, a further consultation was launched for a third wind farm connecting to the previous developments, in the same small area. Meanwhile, further information was released regarding the first wind farm (remember the Christmas application?). Both of these required large amounts of technical information to be read and reported on again, over the Easter and Early Spring bank holidays.  There are more examples, but you get the picture.

Planning law says that the public must be given an opportunity to engage with planning applications and be able to comment on what is happening in their back yard. Communities are invited to read the application documents and respond at the same time as the government representatives. However, the sheer volume of information and the timing of the applications – especially when they have been launched concurrently and over holiday periods – make it virtually impossible for any ordinary citizen to keep up with.

Public consultations

When public bodies launch public consultations, they are required to abide by the Gunning Principles. This is a set of 4 guidelines to ensure good practice and fairness. Gunning Principle 3 says that people must have “adequate time for consideration and response”. This seems impossible to achieve when multiple applications are appearing concurrently. Effectively a five-week period is reduced to two and a half weeks, when there are two applications to read and respond to within the same period. This is certainly not in line with the spirit of the Gunning Principles.

It would be much fairer to the public, and this may also extend to government employees and public servants, if there were a rule in place saying something to the effect of:

“Where developments are within 10km distance from each other, the application process must be timed to avoid communities being required to engage with more than one at any single time. That is, one application must be completed before any other is put out to public consultation, within that 10km area.”

Senedd elections

Something needs to change, and with the Senedd elections in May 2026, things seem likely to change, looking at the opinion polls in Wales.

The current DNS process has been relentlessly pounding many Welsh communities with a continuous stream of planning applications for renewable energy developments. People are simply exhausted.

Communities in the firing line for these multiple developments feel overwhelmed. Many are on the lookout for an alternative government that will make this stop. Perhaps this would be a climate-change denying political party that would stop all renewable energy developments if elected.

In my personal opinion, this would be a shame. We need to find less damaging means of producing renewable energy that benefit Welsh communities without destroying their landscapes and heritage. Welsh Government should take heed and at least address our broken planning system while there is still time.