1. Dr Claire Haggett Landscape Research Group University of Newcastle
ESRC Seminar Series ‘Where next for wind?’
Seminar 1: Explaining national variations in wind power deployment
Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen 21st February 2008
The social acceptance of wind energy: Current thinking and implications for the future
Dr Claire Haggett
Landscape Research Group
University of Newcastle
3 Things
Why people don’t like windfarms
Why they aren’t necessarily NIMBYs
Ways of understanding and addressing this opposition

2. Overview Who protests against wind? Why they do protest?
How they do protest?

3. Who protests? Individual gap between attitudes and behaviour
Social gap between the high support expressed and the low success rate
Self Interest: rational ‘free-riders’
Difference between hypothetical collective rationality and individual rationality
Does not explain opposition from organisations
General principle of ‘Qualified Support’: impact on landscape, environment, humans
Democratic Deficit: the minority who oppose are effective
Key question not about individuals but about how the minority are able to dominate
Decide-announce-defend rationale

4. 1) Free riders ‘Nimby’ generally disregarded Largely incorrect
Actual causes of opposition obscured, not explained
People do not often in the rationale way it suggests
Objections from non-proximate residents
Label likely to breed resentment
Devalues concerns
Broadly used as a descriptor for all protest

5. 2) Qualified support Change people’s minds
Public deficit model
Environmentally aware
Take concerns seriously and address thoroughly through research; provide relevant and situated information that people can trust
Change key features of particular developments

6. i) Landscape Auchencorth Moss, Midlothian
Landscape may be particularly valuable
Support dependant on the plans
Conflicting environmental aims
Auchencorth Moss, Midlothian
Valuable because of its beauty
Sir Walter Scott: "I think I never saw anything so beautiful"
Site would be visible from Pentland Hills, a designated area of great landscape beauty and containing an SSSI
Valuable because of its rarity
Site is visible from the one of the few areas in the UK considered totally unspoilt
Site contains one of Scotland's few remaining raised peat bogs
Value as national/international assets, not just on a local scale
So, thinking about the factors that can affect people’s behaviour towards a proposal.
Protest may manifest because of the perceived impact on the site in which the development is planned. It may be because that landscape is particularly and innately valuable, rather than because it happens to be local, that forms the basis of concern.
For example, the specifics of a development will also be significant here – how many turbines are planned, how tall will they be, and what will the layout and design will be like – what the hydrogen filling station will look like, how big the solar panels will be
Answers to these questions will shape responses to any particular scheme
These conflicting environmental aims’ is an interesting characteristic of renewable energy conflicts. While on one hand such developments are good for the planet, they also have their own environmental consequences. Can these be justified? And who decides?
Not about Nimbyism, it’s about intrinsic landscape value

7. ii) The Importance of Place
Local social and historical context
Particular siting and local relations crucial
Place attachment
Meaning attached to the social landscape
Who is protesting?
Which ‘locals’? What conceptions of the locality?
Offshore windfarm off coast of Redcar
Opposition group ‘IMPACT: for people living near hazardous industry’
Local environments are valuable locally
What facilities are provided/problems experienced dependant on local situation
Secondly, considering the importance of place, and the local social and historical context of an area is crucial. In Scotland, a windfarm built on a disused factory site was fiercely opposed by local people – who had all been made redundant from the factory.
Psychological research has also pointed to the significance of ‘place’ and the attachment that people have to their local environment. Views are developed in the context of immediate surroundings, and any changes to this are a threat to identity. The social landscape has meaning attached to it, beyond amenity or economics.
It also needs to be considered which ‘local people’ are protesting against a windfarm – they could be long standing residents or incomers to an area. This may depend on their particular conception of the local landscape; is it for leisure or economic development? A rural idyll or a livelihood? The value that a locality has will determine how developments are viewed.
And we’re therefore looking at the importance of considering this as a local issue – in many ways it is a national one, with government targets and so on, but it is usually at the local level that conflicts are played out, when a particular development is announced, and the impact that this has on the locality.

8. iii) Local and Global Local issues not global warming
Local concerns and understandings
National benefits, local disadvantages
Noise: regulations and limits in place (PPS22; BS 4142; ETSU-R-1997)
But:
1) difficulties of measurement
2) rules of measurement
3) the experience of noise varies – crucial to understand the local impact on peoples’ lives
The next theme that has arisen is that of the difference between the local and the global. People engage with the ‘local’ not the ‘global’; issues need to have an immediacy in their everyday lives. So, while issues of global warming may be far removed from everyday life, a fear of house prices falling is not.
Local people have a knowledge and understanding of their area, and have very real concerns if they believe their lives will be adversely affected; these have to be taken seriously. And while there may be national and international benefits from a reduction in the use of fossil fuels, the proportional reduction in CO2 emissions for each person who lives near a windfarm may be a small and intangible compensation.

9. iv) Control and ownership
Locals v outsiders
Imposition of (inter)national interests
Environmental values or profits?
Opposition not to a development but the developer
Fishers and developers: different views
Ownership
Developers: a national resource for national benefit
Fishers: livelihoods, generational rights
Direct or indirect compensation; necessity or extortion
Control
Developers: ‘bending over backwards’ to consult
Fishers: very little consultation, inappropriate means, and ineffective
This is related to issues about who owns and controls a development – is it the local people, or what are perceived as outside interests, coming in and exploiting the community
Furthermore, heavy handed techniques to educate and persuade people of the benefits of a necessary development may not help. In fact, they are more likely to incite protest than to overcome it. Evidence from Europe and first cases in this country shows that community owned windfarms meet with less dissent than those seen as imposed by distant and faceless corporations. Such companies may espouse environmental values but are suspected of profiteering. Ultimately, people may not be against the turbines, but against those who want to site them.

10. 3) Democratic deficit Protest shaped by the planning process
Power of the minority
Impact on qualified supporters if concerns are not given a voice
Protest shaped by the planning process
Forced to act in this way
Issues not responded to within the planning process
Decide-announce-defend rationale
Lack of communication perfect catalyst for creating opposition
Nature of consultation
‘Real’ involvement or going through the motions?
Conclusions taken into account?
Trust, social acceptance, and influence
Fairness of outcomes and process

11. Processes
Shift from competitive interest bargaining to consensus building
Recognising all stakeholders and diverse interests
Premises
Under what auspices is engagement carried out?
Democracy; Expertise; Pragmatism?

12. Processes
Procedures
How does the character of the decision-making process affect who participates?
Eg fishing communities
What kind of process would draw people in who reflect the initial balance of public opinion?
Does everyone have the same influence in these processes?
Should some have more influence? Eg shipping
Who counts as ‘local’?
Not homogenous
Decisions can divide communities
How can a balance be achieved between flexibility and a necessary framework?

13. How do they protest?
Discourse: how protesters “present their position as credible, robust and convincing may have practical implications for the outcome of the debate” (Burningham, 2000:55)
Avoiding issues of stake
Invoking the global crisis: planet, not profit
People’s champions
Balancing environmental issues
Redefining the nature of the issue: wind ‘farm’
Everyone is a ‘David’

14. Implications for the future
Different ways of understanding opposition
(Support and) opposition is motivated by:
Landscape value
Issues pertinent to the local context
Issues of immediate concern
Relationships with ‘outsiders’
Opportunities for discussion and real involvement available

15. Questions to ask
Is there local support for the siting of any development, and the specifics of it?
Has the application demonstrated an understanding of the local area and the local people?
Is the renewable energy development relevant for the community in which it is sited? Are the local advantages? Are there local disadvantages?
Is the renewable energy site being developed with a community, rather than being imposing on it?
Has full and open consultation and engagement been allowed?
What form has that engagement taken?
Who has been consulted?
Meaningful action?

16. References
Haggett, C. (forthcoming) ‘Over the sea and far away? A consideration of the planning, politics, and public perceptions of offshore wind farms’, in press at the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning
Haggett, C. (forthcoming) ‘Public engagement in planning for renewable energy’ in S. Davoudi and J. Crawford (eds.) Planning for Climate Change: Strategies for mitigation and adaptation for spatial planners, London: Earthscan.
Haggett, C., and Toke, D. (2005) ‘Crossing the Great Divide – Using Multi-Method Analysis to Understand Opposition to Windfarms’ Public Administration 84, 1,
Bell, D., Gray, T., and Haggett, C. (2005) ‘Policy, Participation and the ‘Social Gap’ in Windfarm Siting Decisions’. Environmental Politics 14, 4,
Gray, T., Haggett, C., and Bell, D. (2005) ‘Windfarm Siting – the Case of Offshore Windfarms’ Ethics, Place and Environment 8, 2,
Haggett, C., and. Vigar, G. (2004) ‘Tilting at windmills? Understanding opposition to windfarm applications’ Town and Country Planning 73 (10) pp
Haggett, C. (2004) ‘Tilting at Windmills? Understanding the Attitude-Behaviour Gap in Renewable Energy Conflicts’, British Sociological Association Conference, York, 22-25th March 2004
ESRC ‘Tilting at Windmills? The Attitude-Behaviour Gap in Renewable Energy Conflicts’ (Environment and Human Behaviour Programme: award number RES )