Correction and Apology

9th June 2025: Jenny over at Save and Restore Walshaw Moor spotted a problem in our template letter which we have corrected. Apologies if you have already written to your MP but the letter should be requesting proposals for the two suggested amendments to the Part 2 of the Public Infrastructure Bill.

Introduction

Save and Restore Walshaw Moor provided an update on their campaign to get peatland protected from large wind farm development. Quoting from their article:

The good news – Ed Miliband’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero has recognised that peatland as a site for onshore wind is a special case and needs protection.

They explain that large onshore wind farms on peatland should only be permitted if the Secretary of State can honestly satisfy himself that the developers have sought alternative, non peat sites, and only rejected them with good reason (Draft National Policy Statement on Energy 1 (EN-1), Para 2.12.74).

Additionally, although the construction or operation of onshore wind farms in, near, or through an environmentally designated area is not ruled out, the designation may make consent more difficult to secure. This is despite the Secretary of State’s ‘Critical National Priority infrastructure’ power to approve big onshore wind planning applications that could damage protected sites (Draft National Policy Statement Energy 3 (EN-3), para 2.12.149).

This proposed policy change comes from many people saying YES to Question 74 in the Government’s public consultation last September on bringing big onshore wind farms into the Nationally Significant Projects planning regime.

Support This Proposal

To help secure stronger protections, please ask your MP (contact details here) to support two specific amendments suggested by the campaign group “Stronger Together to Stop Calderdale Windfarm” using the template letter below.

Please act now before or during the Bill’s report stage in the House of Commons, which starts on 9th June, and write to your MP to request their support.

Please share with family and friends.

Many thanks for your help.

Letter Template

Dear [insert name of your MP],

I am writing to ask you to propose two amendments to Part 2 of the Public Infrastructure Bill (As amended by the Public Bill Committee) when MPs discuss the Bill in the report stage in the House of Commons, which starts on June 9th.

These amendments (see Appendix later) aim to prevent the development of large onshore wind farms on protected peatland.  I believe that this is vital for the following reasons:

• The foundations for a large wind farm could require embedding 50-100,000 tonnes of concrete in the moors.
• Affect the peat bog’s hydrology, potentially draining the peat far beyond the infrastructure footprint.
• Lower the water table and cause the peat to dry out.
• Lead the peat to emit its stored carbon into the air and water.
• Cause peat-forming vegetation to die without a waterlogged surface layer, preventing further carbon sequestration.
• Damage and potentially destroy large areas of conservation-priority blanket bog and other peatland habitats.
• Result in wind farms on peat having higher CO2 emissions and generating more carbon-intensive electricity compared to those not on peat, undermining the green energy transition.
• Damage water quality and increase flood risk in valleys.
• Harm protected birds and wildlife that depend on these habitats.

The Scottish Government has called for a review of the way carbon balance calculations are performed. This is because they have recognised that their calculation tool is not fit for purpose on peat moorlands. I.e. wind farms built on peat could have higher CO2 emissions!

I understand that government will begin the report stage of the bill on the 9th June. There is limited time to act but I hope that you will be able to support your constituents in protecting our environment for future generations.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes

[insert your name]

[insert your address]

Appendix: Proposed Amendments

First proposed amendment

Which Clause would it amend?

Part 2, Planning, Chapter 2 Spatial development strategies, Clause 51 12D Contents of spatial development strategy, Page 72, line 18, at end insert:

“(6A) A spatial development strategy in England must – (a) list any protected peatland (SSSI, SPA or SAC) in the strategy area; (b) Exclude any and all areas of such protected peatland as a permissible site for the development of wind farms or energy parks”

Explanation

Protected peatland is not securely safeguarded from development under existing planning rules and processes, because of the Imperative reason of overriding public interest ‘derogations’ loophole in the 2017 Habitats Regulations (as amended). This allows the Secretary of State to approve a development even where Appropriate Assessment is unable to show beyond reasonable scientific doubt that the development would not damage the integrity of a protected site.

The existing loophole was enlarged by the National Policy Statement on Energy 1 Review of Habitats Regulations Assessment in January 2024. This stated that the government believes that Critical National Priority low carbon infrastructure development has an ‘imperative reason of overriding public interest’ (IROPI) and as such is one of the wholly exceptional reasons that can justify damaging irreplaceable habitats like blanket bog.

In addition if the Government does not drop Part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill As Amended by the Public Bill Committee – having refused to amend Part 3 in the Planning Bill Committee – existing environmental protections to the irreplaceable blanket bog will be removed in order to accelerate the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects planning regime.

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill Explanatory Notes say that it will be necessary to make targeted amendments to existing environmental legislation, like the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 (“the Habitats Regulations”) and the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Part 3 introduces a Nature Levy that developers on protected sites would pay into a new Nature Restoration Fund. It would help cover the costs of Environmental Delivery Plans that Natural England would carry out after a Development Consent Order was granted, in order to mitigate/compensate for the damage to specified protected habitats or species caused by the developments.

In exchange for paying the Nature Levy, developers on protected sites would no longer have to produce detailed Environmental Statements about the environmental damage their project would cause, and how they propose to avoid, mitigate or compensate for it. This environmental deregulation process has been identified as a “licence to kill” or “cash to trash” by a group of leading economists, former government advisors, and leading conservationists.

During the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee debate on 14.5.2025, the Minister of State for Housing and Planning reassured MPs that an irreplaceable habitat such as blanket bog has protections that “are not environmental obligations that can be discharged through the nature restoration fund, so they would not be the focus of an environmental delivery plan.” But this commitment doesn’t seem to have been written into the Planning and Infrastructure Bill As Amended by the Public Bill Committee.

Without this commitment, irreplaceable blanket bog in Special Areas of Conservation would no longer be protected by the Habitats Regulations obligations on developers. They would not be required to assess the damage their proposals would cause to the environment, nor show how they would avoid, mitigate or compensate for that damage before planning permission can be granted.

Second proposed amendment

Which Clause would it amend?

Part 2, Planning, Chapter 2 Spatial development strategies, Clause 51 12D Contents of spatial development strategy, (11) Page 79, line 34, at end insert:

(11A) Any and all protected peatland in the strategy area must be reserved for restoration without any windfarm or other development, regardless of peat depth in line with Natural England’s new Definitions of Favourable Conservation Status for Blanket Bog and Heathland, that clarify:

• Blanket bog may occur on peats shallower than 0.3m, especially upon the periphery of blanket bog masses.
• Areas of shallower peat will often support blanket bog vegetation and should also be regarded as blanket bog and an integral part of the hydrological unit of the peat mass or body.

Explanation:

This amendment aims to secure mutually interdependent biodiversity and climate benefits in a strategy area that includes protected peatland, which will not be obtainable if development takes place on protected peatland in the the strategy area.

As a near-Net Zero national grid is achieved, these mutually interdependent biodiversity and climate benefits cannot credibly be dismissed by claims of the greater benefit of a wind farm’s counterfactual carbon savings.

This is clear from the recent phase 1 review of the Scottish Government Carbon Calculator for Wind Farms on Peat, which has found that comparing combined wind farm and peatland emissions to the counterfactual of electricity generated by fossil fuels does not present an accurate representation of future payback or provide significant insights into the climate mitigation effects of new wind farms on peat.