URGENT action must be taken to ensure communities affected by large wind-farm developments can reap long-term benefits.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said in a new report that more must be done to ensure growing wind-farm expansion is matched by help for neighbouring communities.
Its research looked into the impact on the environment, the unequal distribution of economic impact and the concentration of developments in disadvantaged communities.
It concluded that a mechanism for deals between developers and local people must be put in place now – before the next wave of investment takes place.
The provision and expansion of community benefit funds – in both size and geographic scope – are necessary to improve the economic, social and environmental prospects of affected areas, it is claimed.
The report, Wind Energy and Justice for Disadvantaged Communities, acknowledges there is scope to learn from good practice across the UK, where organisations have managed to increase the level of community benefits that developers provide.
The Stirlingshire village of Fintry was cited as an example. Community benefits took the form of ownership of a 2.5MW turbine, within a wider farm, which will eventually generate an annual income of £400,000.
Report author Dr Richard Cowell said: "We are seeing the size of community benefit funds increase in line with the growing scale of wind farm developments.
"That presents a huge opportunity to address the disadvantages faced by those living alongside wind farms."
The report comes in the wake of a row over wind-farm community benefit funds. Earlier this month, renewable energy developer Infinergy said Scotland's councils were increasingly pocketing the cash against residents' wishes and using it across the whole local authority area.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article