Onshore wind strategy gives every gust a job description
The government gave the onshore wind strategy 82 pages and more than 40 actions. Britain’s moving air once enjoyed a reputation for turning up uninvited and doing precisely what it liked.
Ministers want more turbines before 2030. Every useful breeze now needs ambition, community benefit and a willingness to rotate during stakeholder engagement.
The strategy targets barriers to onshore wind. The hardest barrier remains a village hall with thirty folding chairs, one miniature turbine and a man who has studied shadow flicker since breakfast.
Clean power gets a sensible font
An official taskforce prepared the plan for a year. The department disbanded it when the document was ready.
Former members returned to the countryside. Several found more practical work pointing in different directions.
“The atmosphere has coasted for centuries on being renewable,” said Clive Milestone, Director of Managed Weather. “Now every gust needs an owner, a timetable and a form explaining why it arrived from the west.”
Projects may bring economic benefits to nearby communities. They will also feed the electricity grid and supply the nation with letters beginning, ‘I am not against clean energy, but’.
Officials say the plan will make development quicker. Planning meetings will use digital systems. Clerks can then print objections faster and place them in a blue folder.
The wind declines to read the paperwork
Britain’s wind read none of the strategy. The department called this an early sign that delivery was working.
It then booked a lessons meeting for the next completely still day.
Read the real story: The government’s onshore wind strategy.