Wryde Croft Wind Farm Parish Council briefing Tuesday 5 August, 2014 About RES Q. Are you an energy supplier? A. No, our job is to produce the energy (whether that s by wind, solar, or other means of renewable energy), and then sell it to the wholesale market, where it is then bought by the companies whose names you will recognise, like Npower, British Gas, and so on. Planning permission queries: Q. Does Nutsgrove have planning permission yet? When do you start Nutsgrove? A. Yes, Nutsgrove received planning permission some years ago. We merged it with the smaller (six turbine) Wryde Croft Wind Farm to create the current wind farm (13 turbines total) we are speaking to you about today. It is now all one site, and it is being constructed all together, resulting in combined benefits, a reduction in track being laid, and a reduction in site entrances. Q. Do you realise that there s lots of opposition to wind in this area? A. Yes, we are aware of this. This site is fully consented, and has been dormant for a while due to the aviation planning condition that was in force. Now that planning condition no longer applies we are able to start construction. We want to engage with the community, and the start of that is meeting with you tonight. Construction of the Wryde Croft Wind Farm, and road closures Q. Have you notified local farmers of Wryde Drain bridge road closure? A. We are going to send out letters to all properties in and around the diversion area on Friday 8 August. We are happy to send Parish Councils a copy of this letter for their records. Q. What have you done about the gas main that runs under the site? A. We have liaised with National Grid about this. We are going to build a protection slab that will protect the gas mains. They will inspect the works to ensure that they are up to the right standard. Q. You said that traffic will be bringing the wind turbine components on site between June and July 2015. This will be an issue, as harvests are getting earlier. If a lorry carrying a turbine sail meets a combine harvester then they will be stuck!
A. We ve been reasonably generous with timings. The big deliveries tend to come early on, and towards the end of July we would only expect smaller deliveries to site, so this shouldn t be an issue. We will monitor the situation and keep this in mind. Turbine deliveries aren t normally as onerous as they sound. Normally there are normally 6/7 deliveries per machine so only around 2/3 deliveries a day. Q. Are you just using the A47 and New Cut for deliveries? A. Yes, however we cannot confirm direction of travel along A47, for example during concrete pours it is likely we will use a supplier based towards Peterborough but we always require a back up plant (in case the main supply facility breaks down) and we can t confirm at this stage where that will be. Q. One of the farmers will be using the New Cut Road to get back to Parson Drove. Is he aware? A. We have liaised with the three landowners that will be affected, and have spoken to them about when they will be spraying and so on. We will also be in daily contact with them while we re on site. Q. Who is supplying the turbines? A. We haven t signed a contract with the company yet, so we can t divulge this for commercial reasons. We will be in a position to share this with you in the next couple of months. Q. Will the turbine manufacturer be local? A. The local manufacturer has now gone out of business they were based in Loughborough. Now, most turbine components come from Europe. Q. Are you in touch with the North Levels Draining Board? A. Yes, we re in contact with them as we will be feeding into their drains and culverts. Community benefit schemes - general Q. Is there a difference between the Local Electricity Discount Scheme (LEDS) area and the community benefit fund area? A. Yes. The community benefit fund area is usually determined using a set distance from the turbines and we would welcome local Parish Councils opinion on the area that should be covered: our slide shows an area 5km from the turbines as a draft proposal. For the LEDS scheme we have to apply a strict methodology to ensure that we don t fall foul of the Bribery Act. The LEDS pot is calculated on the basis of 3000 per megawatt. So for a scheme of this size, the pot will be 78,000.
We work on the basis that the minimum discount per household is 100 and the maximum is 250. These parameters determine which properties around the wind farm are eligible, whether that s houses, businesses, village halls etc. We expand the LEDS area out as far as we can, bearing in mind our total pot, and our minimum discount. Q. Is there an industry standard for these schemes? A. There is good practice guidance around consultation and engaging with communities, which we adhere to. Local electricity discount scheme Q. Are tenanted properties eligible? A. Yes, there is no reason why not. It is reasonable to expect that the billpayer of a property, rather than the landlord, would receive the discount. Q. What if someone doesn t register to the LEDS scheme? A. People are under no obligation to register. We contact every property within the LEDS area, and offer different ways for them to register. They can register by Freephone, online, or by post. If someone doesn t initially realise that they are eligible, but finds out at a later date, then they can still contact us and we will take them through the registration process. The discount applies to a property and not a person, so if someone moves out of an eligible property, the new owner can claim the discount. Q. What if a lot of new houses are built in the area? Will the future residents of these houses yet to be built be eligible to apply for LEDS? A. All houses within the LEDS eligible area that are built and connected to the mains electricity at the time that the scheme is launched will be eligible. Any properties built after that point will not be eligible.. Q. Isn t LEDS essentially the taxpayer subsidising those who are living within the area? A. RES are working towards being subsidy free by the end of 2016. The wind industry was initially subsidised when it was a young industry as there was a need to find ways of generating electricity in non-traditional ways. The government used subsidies to encourage development to a point where it was competitive. These subsidies are gradually being withdrawn as the industry matures.
LEDS is a community benefit that is unique to RES. We undertook a Populus Poll to ask local people what benefits they would like if a wind farm was built near them, and the most popular answer was lower cost energy. The Local Electricity Discount Scheme is our response to that. Q. You say that LEDS at Wryde Croft will benefit up to 700 properties. If it s only 700 homes this will probably result in the village of Thorney being split with some houses receiving the benefit, and others not. A. If after defining the LEDS eligible area using our set parameters, we found that we were only including 12 houses in Thorney, for example, we would take a view. It might be that we adjust the area slightly so that we don t include them, and avoid splitting the community. Q. How is the decision about which properties are included in LEDS made? A. Our technical team take the location of the turbines and look at how many properties are included within a set radius of the turbines. Our starting point is 3km. We use Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail data to determine how many properties are in the area. We then apply the principle of the minimum payment of 100 per property to move the radius in or out to finalise the eligible area. Q. On the map, it shows Gedney Hill village included, but not North Road. There are about half a dozen houses on that road what if they aren t in the LEDS scheme area? A. We haven t set the eligible area for LEDS at Wryde Croft yet, so we don t yet know if those properties would be included. Q. Thorney is a key service centre. We are going to be flooded with houses shortly. I would like you to ensure that all of Thorney around 1000 homes in total benefits from LEDS. A. We can t guarantee that. We need to show that each site is treated exactly the same. We will look to include as many properties as we can, while still abiding by the LEDS eligibility criteria including ensuring that the discount falls somewhere between 100-250. With a total pot of 78,000, and a minimum discount of 100, we know that we can t include more than around 700 properties in the scheme. We can t negotiate on this it has to be completely objective, and the same criteria must apply here as everywhere else. RES has launched LEDS at 23 wind farms so far. With the community benefit fund, the tentative 5km radius is more open to debate. It needs to be a reasonable area for the project. We are aware that you may well be being consulted by other developers in the area who will be offering you similar schemes. So you can help us set the area, not just taking it in isolation, but considering the other schemes around you, and where they extend to, to ensure that no communities fall through the cracks. Community benefit fund Q. Can you divide the fund pot and give a portion to each parish?
A. The difficulty with this is on what basis do we split the pot? What criteria can we reasonably apply that would work over the lifetime of the site, which is 25 years. If Thorney is attracting a lot of development if we tried to do it on the latest population statistics, then that will quickly be out of date. We would constantly have to be revising the capacity of each parish s fund, and it is then hard to distribute the money when the capacity keeps changing. We would advise against thinking about the community benefit fund area in terms of parishes. Look at it as a whole area, and what will benefit everyone living and working within that area. Q. Can you accrue the money? Or does it all have to be spent each year? A. If you came to us and made a case for accruing money for a big capital project, say saving up the payments over five years, or similar, then that could be acceptable. If we saw that the money was just building up and not being spent at all then we would talk to you about why this is the case, and what we could do to help you distribute it fairly. Q. The panel will have to be constantly juggling the demands of Thorney the biggest settlement and the demands of smaller settlements. Isn t this just going to be a big headache for the panel? A. We find that these concerns swiftly disappear once the fund is up and running and the fund panel start putting things into practice. Projects aren t restricted to locality a youth project in Gedney Hill would be accessible to young people from other villages in the area of benefit too.. Q. How are people appointed to the panel when there are multiple parishes involved? A. We use an independent administrator for the fund. The administrator in this area are Cambridgeshire Community Foundation (CCF). They are currently working with us on two other projects. One is Wadlow in South Cambridgeshire, which is fully operational and the fund has been running for nearly two years. They were in a similar situation to you where a number of parishes fall into the community benefit fund area. The approach for that fund has been that any parish which is wholly or at least half in that area, automatically gets a place on the panel. We aim for an odd number of people on the panel to avoid a stalemate situation. We can arrange for a meeting between you and the CCF to answer all your questions about the community benefit fund. Q. What if the project that applies for funding is just outside the 5km boundary? A. The criterion is that they have to demonstrate that the project is of benefit to those living and working within the boundary. It might be that a school outside the area of benefit needs new netball equipment. If they could demonstrate that a significant proportion of children at the school come from the area of benefit, the fund panel would then take this into account. Q. If the panel doesn t spend all the money allocated for the year, does the money stay in the account and roll over to the following year?
A. Yes. Cambridgeshire Community Foundation (CCF) are under contract to us to produce an annual report and accounts for us so we can understand that s the case. In my experience, we haven t had a first or second year where it has been undersubscribed, normally it is oversubscribed. Then after the initial enthusiasm has worn off, you may find that you need to encourage applications, and keep awareness high. The CCF can help with this they can put organisations on their mailing list and write to them when money is available to apply for, and so on. Q. How often should the fund panel meet? A. That s up to you to decide. You may decide because you ve got other commitments on that it might be once a year, or maybe twice a year to ensure everyone has a fair chance. For a fund this size, we d say two meetings a year would be sufficient. A six month period feels about right for the process, but the CCF will talk to you about that. Ultimately, it s up to you to decide based on the communities you are working for and their needs. Q. Who is the money paid to? A. The money gets paid directly to the successful applicant. Q. Legally, what is the liability of the members of the fund panel? A. The fund is administered by the CCF, and the legal agreements are between RES and CCF. The fund panel make decisions and abide by criteria set with CCF, but the CCF would intervene if they felt that there had been some serious mismanagement, or if the rules hadn t been followed. Q. Is there a set application process? A. The CCF have a template application form that is tried and tested, but you can always make changes to this if you feel like there are additional questions you need to ask. Q. Does the funding have to be used for new projects only, or can it be used towards the maintenance or upkeep of existing buildings? A. As long as the applicant can demonstrate that it s of benefit to the community, then there is no reason why the fund couldn t be used towards projects of this nature. For example, if the heating in a church has failed, and people can no longer use that building, then that is detrimental to the community. Using the fund to repair or replace the heating system will be of benefit to the community. Q. Do you have criteria about using the fund towards green or environmental projects? A. We try to keep our criteria loose to ensure that as many people can apply as possible. Usually we say that the fund should be used towards any social, educational or environmental projects of benefit to the fund area. Q. What s the next step with setting up the fund panel?
A. RES will arrange for CCF to get in touch with you. We haven t yet set an agreement with CCF as we are yet to firmly establish the area of benefit. We would like you to go away and think about the 5km area we have suggested is it sensible? Should it be bigger, or smaller? Then we can start appointing people to the fund panel. Q. Can we have copies of the map that sets out the community benefit fund area? A. Yes, we will circulate the slides after the meeting to Parish Council clerks. The map is included in those slides. Next steps 1. RES to send slides to Parish Councils 2. RES to set up meeting for the Parish Councils with Jane Darlington from the Cambridgeshire Community Foundation in late September, allowing time for the Parish Councils to meet and discuss the community benefit schemes. 3. Parish Councils to consider who to nominate to the fund panel. Some Parish Councils are going through elections, so it may be necessary to postpone formation of the fund panel until Spring 2015.