Is Walshaw moor the right place for England's biggest onshore wind farm?

POT'S GROWING ON? 07/12/23

Most people probably aren’t aware that the largest onshore wind farm ever in England has just been proposed on Walshaw moor between Hebden Bridge and Howarth in West Yorkshire. We live on the edge of the moor in the parish of Wadsworth, which it sits within.

Initially this news was met with some interest because we need more onshore wind but this has soon turned to major concern for the environmental and wildlife impact this will have.

The proposals mention 65 wind turbines that may be up to 150-200m tall across some of the most important and protected moors in Europe for wildlife and carbon storage. The height is important to note because of the impact building, transporting, maintaining and eventually de-comissioning them will have on the moor and wildlife. Roads will need to be built across the moors to every one of those turbines.

Peat moors are one of the biggest stores of carbon (released as carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases causing climate change). Peatlands cover just 3% of the world’s surface but hold nearly 30% of the soil carbon (Moors for the Future). In the UK we have some of the most important moors which have taken around 6,000 - 10,000 years to form but they haven’t been well looked after. We should be doing everything to restore them, they are the UK’s equivalent of rainforests when it comes to carbon storage, though they may not look as exciting to some.

Walshaw moor is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) with various legal protections on it. It is also a South Pennines Special Protection Area (SPA). It’s full of rare and endangered birds, plants and fungi.

Peat moors are areas of natural wetland where plant material over hundreds of years grows and dies. The water locks it in an anaerobic state without oxygen, this slows or stops decomposition. Plants like moss and cotton grow absorbing carbon from the air, dieback and that carbon is then stored in the water as peat. When it is drained or dug up, oxygen reaches it releasing carbon.

They also act like the biggest sponges on the planet, soaking up and locking in rain water, releasing it slowly. As peat moors are damaged and drained they contribute to flooding, as has famously been seen in Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd and other surrounding areas. In places like this prone to flooding, repairing the peat moors by blocking drainage channels and re-seeding bare patches of peat to prevent it weathering further should be a top priority for the UK. It prevents flooding and locks in huge amounts of carbon. There are organisations such as Moors for the Future and Yorkshire Peat Partnership doing this, but they need more funding and focus from national and local Governments, as well as the public.

Last night we attended a meeting hosted by local residents analysing exactly what the wind farm proposals would mean, the Community Centre was filled to standing room only. Perhaps surprisingly, everyone attending was passionate about climate and wildlife. Everyone wants onshore wind farms (as well as offshore) but in the right places such as agricultural crop land, urban areas and less vulnerable places. However the overwhelming conclusion of the meeting is that whoever put forward the plans could not have chosen a worse spot for them.

Ultimately I can’t help but feel this proposal is a failure of UK Government over the last decade or so because of their ban of on shore wind. If instead, ten years ago, they had invested in helping local communities and ordinary people like us to put up their own smaller wind turbines in the right places, we wouldn’t be in such an urgent and dire need for bigger projects now.

Even so, I can only support projects that solve the climate crisis and save our dying natural world. We must do both, it is our responsibility.

Update: since writing this post I felt I should add that we still need much more data from all different sources, various organisations and individuals are already working on this. I’d be interested to know where the council and planning have identified more wind turbines in the area can go as I’m not opposed to seeing more of them, just the placing being correct and proportional.