Power and perception – From paradigms of specialist disciplines and opinions of expert groups to an acceptance for the planning of onshore windfarms in England – Making a case for Social Impact Assessment (SIA)

Starting point for the research underlying this paper was the question why there were low rates of planning approval for Community Energy (CE) onshore windfarms in England, despite an overall supportive policy position. In order to get an indication for possible reasons, results of an in-depth review of one community driven project are provided; the Valley Wind Cooperative (VWC) in Kirklees, West Yorkshire. Importantly, a disconnect between policy and practice is observed. Views and associated perceptions of experts of certain disciplines, including e.g. landscape architecture, ecology and tourism development represent specialised but not necessarily more widely shared values of local communities. They play a particular important role in explaining the disconnect. In the presence of an overall positive attitude towards windfarm proposals of local communities, this is problematic as it prevents socially accepted projects from gaining approval. Whilst social impact assessment (SIA) can facilitate debate and community support, trade-offs between different views need to be balanced and should not be dominated by perceptions of particular (disciplinary) groups.