Countryside Alliance Wales backs petition to save the countryside

Countryside Alliance Wales has supported a petition filed with the Senedd’s Petitions Committee that is seeking to force the Welsh Government to consider the full range of clean possible energy sources to get Wales to net zero and minimise the amount of countryside and farmland sacrificed.

The Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales (CPRW), The Welsh Countryside Charity, has tabled a petition calling for a temporary moratorium on onshore wind and ground based solar proposals greater than 10MW, until the Welsh Government updates its energy policies to reflect the advances in technology and include the full potential of offshore wind, rooftop solar, tidal, wave, hydrogen and nuclear.

Ross Evans, Spokesperson for CPRW says he was astounded when the Welsh Climate Change Minister admitted that current energy policy does not include offshore wind as it hasn’t been updated in three years.

“The Minister for Climate Change, Julie James MS, publicly stated that  ‘The full potential of offshore wind is not currently included in Future Wales, as it hasn’t been updated since 2020’. Evans and the rest of the room (mostly wind developers) were agog at the response.

CPRW believes that without the inclusion of the full potential of far offshore wind, which is currently being rolled out at pace, the Welsh Government’s calculations of what is needed to get Wales to be a net energy producer is going to be one-sided.

“Proposals in the Irish and Celtic seas are forecast to produce up to 100TWh of electricity, which alone is more than twice what we are predicted to need by 2050. And, partially due to the effective ban on onshore wind in England, offshore wind is now as comparatively as cheap as onshore.” 

A recent study for CPRE in England showed that rooftop solar also has a major role to play. Installing solar panels on new buildings, existing large warehouse rooftops and other land such as car parks, could provide at least 40-50 gigawatts (GW) of low carbon electricity, contributing more than half of the total national target of 70GW of solar energy by 2035.

Rachel Evans from the Countryside Alliance says the petition has their full support, as more and more of our countryside is being sacrificed when it doesn’t need to be.

“We are not calling for an end to onshore wind or solar, indeed, this petition would not stop small-scale community and farm-based projects. What we are saying is that when taking all options into account, the land needed to be sacrificed is reduced dramatically.” 

“The UK as a country of 65 million only produces enough food for 20 million, it is vital that we are not sacrificing much-needed farmland.” 

The tourism sector will also be impacted by the industrialisation of our countryside with energy projects, and the pylons needed to connect them, stretching across the heart of Wales. 

Katie Barstow from Fforest Fields campsite in Hundred House (which welcomed nearly 15,000 visitors to the region in 2022) says that Covid policies, business rate hikes, the proposed Tourism Tax and a shifting economy has meant remaining positive, proactive and focused is enough additional workload for their team, only for the myopic energy policy of the Welsh Government to cause a further worry about the region and business's future.

The petition is live on the Senedd’s Petitions Committee for you to sign and can be found here.