Kenilworth and Southam Liberal Democrats

It is important that a rational approach is the basis for planning policy and that policy is based around the resources in Stratford District. It would be too easy to assume what is good for the UK, or England, or the West Midlands region should set the priorities for Stratford district. For instance, tidal and wave power is an important resource for the United Kingdom (one of the best in the world) and should be exploited by the country - but it would clearly be nonsensical to suggest that these resources should form part of Stratford District's viable renewables.

Energy policy should prioritise energy conservation and insulation. With a significant stock of heritage buildings in Stratford District the Council could and should proactively establish an advice process for listed buildings etc that promotes energy efficiency without degradation of this important historical resource.

This paper proposes that the LDF should guide decision-makers towards an effective exploitation of the local resources. This would involve prioritising the resources that are likely to be useful in the Stratford District Council area.

Priorities

The West Midlands have commissioned a study from Halcrow which was presented to the Environment Quality and Climate Change Panel in July 2009. It made a number of assumptions about the usefulness of resources across the region. It would be unwise to adopt such assumptions wholesale in Stratford District. Noting the rural and historic and landscape character of the District, it is suggested encouraging renewables on a prioritised basis for SDC in order, is as follows:

1. Biomass - this was indicated not to be a priority in the Halcrow study, whereas the District has a large rural area with significant arisings of waste wood. "Biomass in Warwickshire", an event organised by Warwickshire County Council, indicated considerable resource of waste timber, and identified the barriers to exploitation being establishment of a supply chain. With a large rural agricultural base this should be a priority in Stratford District. (A log burning stove in a well insulated house can be a promising route to achieving a 10% renewables target.) Planting woodland or energy crops with single species on a large scale should be discouraged in the interest of maintaining biodiversity, however.

2. Solar. Stratford District is well towards the southern half of the country and has a very reasonable solar profile. With the introduction of a national Feed in Tariff and the District promoted solar hot water scheme, this offers good possibilities with existing developed technology.

3. Small-scale hydro. In mediaeval times there were in excess of 300 waterwheels in Warwickshire. Hydro has a minimum impact on the general environment, produces higher output at times of high demand (e.g. wintertime) and is suitable for small-scale developments - in some cases by restoring electrical equipment fallen into disuse, or re-commissioning ancient sites.

4. Small-scale wind (less than 25 kW). The wind profile for Central England is not particularly promising - the National wind database suggests average wind speeds of 6.2m/s 45m above ground level. The equivalent figure in a western coastal area might be about 7.2m/s. Power is proportional to the cube of the wind speed, so the same installation would be about 56% more effective at the coast for these sample speeds. Given the District's generally lower level of wind speed, it is important that small-scale wind turbines are properly sited to gain maximum benefit from local fluctuations that the topology might cause. The locally-based Warwick wind trials, supplemented by recent national trials, have shown that very small-scale domestic wind turbines in built-up areas consume more energy in manufacture than they are likely to generate in their lifetime. However there are a number of local examples (for instance in farm situations) where single mast turbines, properly sited, can be effective. Unfortunately, these tend to be in exposed visible locations where visual planning harm is a consideration. Nevertheless such visual impact is broadly equivalent to a single mobile phone mast, of which there are number in the District.

5. Heat pumps. Air source and ground source heat pumps recover energy from either the air, or the ground, after heating by the sun. Ground source heat pumps are well-suited to properties with large areas of land where coils can be laid in the ground near the surface. Alternatively boreholes can be drilled, but this is usually a very specialised technology and tends to be less attractive. Air source heat pumps can be applied in any location - and to that extent Stratford District is no different to any other. It should be noted however that heat pumps do require an electrical supply input, so there is an energy overhead.

6. Energy from waste. With improving recycling rates this technology is possibly less promising than a few years ago. However methane can be captured from landfill sites (indeed it is done so at Ufton) and small-scale schemes using, for instance, farm slurry or small-scale anaerobic digestion could offer value to a renewable energy mix. It should be noted that there is an outline long term commitment of the Council to a EFW plant based in Coventry, which taken with improved recycling rates is likely to remove a good proportion of feedstock for local EFW plants based on domestic waste.

7. Combined Heat and Power. CHP schemes of any scale, generally exploit a combination of an industrial process with a consumer base for the heat produced. Normally this would be associated with an intensively developed urban area not characteristic of our District. Whilst this does not rule it out - it makes it unlikely.

8. Large-scale wind "farms". See 4. Because of the relatively modest wind resource, it is likely that only discrete single carefully sited wind turbines would be effective. An array of large-scale turbines would not be able to exploit very local increases above the average. As well as the ANOB, considerable areas of Stratford district have high quality landscape and planning harm would have to be balanced against any energy production.

9. Geothermal (not to be confused with borehole heat pumping). Geothermal derives from vestigial volcanic activity from within the planet. Certain areas of the country (eg Devon and Cornwall) have natural ground thermal energy relatively close to the surface due thermal radioactivity in granites. Information is generally sparse on geothermal in Warwickshire, but is certainly the case that very deep boreholes would be needed to recover any natural geothermal heat from the ground.

Application

How could such a prioritisation be used for particular planning decisions? It has been the practice to include explanatory notes in Stratford District plans and these could be incorporated, together with practice notes for officers. The policy should encourage and positively assist the development of the items towards the top of the listing. The objective is to have systems that actually work effectively - this is what is needed to achieve true carbon reduction. For low priority resources, there should be a more rigorous assessment of the total energy balance and a strong weighting to produce evidence that the environmental gain overcomes any planning harm.

Community schemes should be encouraged. In other countries, such schemes offering a "bottom up" approach have been successful because the local communities are seen to have received gains or advantages. This is to be encouraged rather a top down control and command approach, where local communities may perceive a scheme has been foisted upon them and see it as inappropriate to the locale and the energy distribution requirements of the District. In general, generation of energy that is used on site, or nearby, will always be desirable, avoiding the potential need for creating new grid infrastructure and losses in transmission.

Finally, the LDF should also address the circumstance where a neighbouring development proposal compromises energy generation. The most obvious example is light to solar panels being blocked by a neighbouring development. This principle would also apply to other technologies such as hydro and wind.

Nigel Rock

01926 817250

nigel.rock@stratford-dc.gov.uk

Councillor for Stockton Napton & Shuckburgh

August 2009