Row over goodwill payments by wind farm developers

A war of words has broken out between countryside campaigners and renewable energy generators over the issue of 'goodwill payments' from wind farm developers.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England has called on the Government to ban the payments on the grounds they risk "bringing the planning system into disrepute".

The CPRE published a survey which it claimed showed the practice was on the increase and gave the impression that wind farm consents were being "bought".

It wants goodwill payments outlawed and any such offers channelled either through the s106 system or the proposed Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).

Paul Miner, CPRE's senior planning campaigner, said: "CPRE supports the need to increase investment in renewable energy, including wind energy. But 'goodwill payments' threaten to bring the planning system into disrepute and are questionable even on the grounds of the need for more renewable energy. We believe that the solution is to outlaw these payments completely. Energy companies should be required to work through the planning process in the same way as any other developer."

However, the British Wind Energy Association reacted angrily, claiming CPRE had implied the wind industry was making improper payments to local communities in order to win planning permissions. Charles Anglin, its director of communications, said: "This is an outrageous assertion. Wind farm developers are damned if they do damned if they don't. We recognise that wind farms are a long-term presence in local communities and we want to give something back to those communities. That is in the best traditions of local community engagement."

He added: "Implying as this report does that this is somehow an improper use of funds is deeply inaccurate and ill-informed."

Anglin said wind developers were making goodwill payments for such things as OAP lunch clubs or a children's playground because the s106 system was unduly restrictive. He claimed the CIL would make matters worse and urged reforms to the s106 regime to allow community benefits to be part of the formal planning system.

A spokesman for Communities and Local Government said: "We are quite clear that there can be no question of planning permissions being bought or sold, nor can there be any perception that this could be the case.

"Our existing policy is clear (regarding planning obligations or section 106 agreements) planning permission cannot be bought and sold. Similarly, planning obligations should never be used purely as a means of securing for the local community a share in the profits of development, i.e. as a means of a 'betterment levy'.

"In addition Government has been very clear that CIL is a mechanism to raise additional revenue to support the delivery of infrastructure needed to support the growth of an area. CIL is not a mechanism to provide general community benefits such as insulating private homes."

Roger Milne

9 October 2008