{"id":488987,"date":"2025-10-10T18:27:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T18:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488987\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T18:27:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T18:27:20","slug":"councillors-unanimously-back-call-for-the-welsh-government-to-pause-wind-turbine-applications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488987\/","title":{"rendered":"Councillors unanimously back call for the Welsh Government to pause wind turbine applications"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Powys councillors voted unanimously to call on the Welsh Government<\/a> to pause wind turbine applications in the county.<\/p>\n

At a\u00a0Powys County Council\u00a0<\/a>meeting on Thursday, October 9, a motion was brought in front of councillors to support the call asking the Welsh Government to pause applications until it has answered three important aspects for developing these energy projects.<\/p>\n

These applications, which are considered as Developments of National Significance (DNS), are processed by Welsh Government Planning Inspectors at Planning and Environment Decisions Wales<\/a> who advise a government minister on what decision to take.<\/p>\n

The council is only a statutory consultee in this process and is able to provide a Local Impact Report on a DNS application.<\/p>\n

The motion was brought forward by cabinet member Councillor Glyn Preston (Liberal Democrat \u2013 Llanidloes) and was seconded by Councillor Jonathan Wilkinson (Conservative \u2013 Meifod and Llangyniew).<\/p>\n

Cllr Preston said: \u201cI\u2019d like to thank Cllr Wilkinson who\u2019s been willing to work with me on this motion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to be able to work cross-party on an issue of such importance to our county and I hope members from all parties, and none (Independents) will be able to join in supporting this today.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believed some \u201chard practical realities\u201d need to be faced, one of which is that the national grid system to link up energy projects is \u201cat capacity\u201d in Powys.<\/p>\n

Cllr Preston said: \u201cApproving large scale developments without a clear distribution network is simply unsustainable.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither is it reasonable that newly built transmission lines simply export power out of our county without improving the local grid for our communities.\u2019<\/p>\n

He wanted to see a commitment\u00a0being made to put transmission lines underground wherever possible \u201cto protect our landscapes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cllr Preston believed that the current \u201ccase by case\u201d approach of planning applications by PEDW was not keeping up with the number of proposals.<\/p>\n

Cllr Preston said: \u201cCommunities are being completely overwhelmed by multiple overlapping projects and uncertainty over their combined impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like there is a new application\u00a0every week and the local people are beginning\u00a0to lose faith in the impartiality of the PEDW planning system.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want Powys to remain a leader in renewable energy but that also means speaking up when the system is not working as it should.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plaid Cymru group leader Cllr Elwyn Vaughan (Glantwymyn) said that he backed the motion and if he, as a member of the Planning committee who takes an interest in planning, felt a little bit \u201clost\u201d then he couldn\u2019t \u201cimagine\u201d how the public felt.<\/p>\n

Cllr Vaughan said: \u201cIt\u2019s not just the Welsh Government we need to press, but also Westminster.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is because applications for grid transmission are decided at a UK Government level.<\/p>\n

Cllr Jeremy Brignell-Thorp (Green Party \u2013 Montgomery and Forden) agreed with the motion but didn\u2019t want it to be seen \u201cas a vote against wind turbines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cllr Brignell-Thorp said: \u201cI do agree there\u2019s a lack of a coherent publicly acceptable strategy for building more wind generation\u00a0and the Welsh Government does need to address this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cllr Wilkinson came in at the end of the debate to sum up the motion and said: \u201cI became increasingly alarmed at the size and scale and the feeding frenzy of these development applications and the impacts they would have on the landscape of our precious county.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are only a consultee \u2013 but we are able send a clear message to the Welsh Government that the scale of what\u2019s been proposed here in Powys needs to be looked at again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council went to a vote which saw all 51 councillors\u00a0at the meeting\u00a0vote in favour of the motion.<\/p>\n

\"CllrCllr Jeremy Brignell-Thorp – Green Party – represents the ward of Forden and Montgomery at Powys County Council. From PCC\"GenericGeneric picture of a wind turbine\"CllrCllr Jonathan Wilkinson – Conservative represents the ward of Llangyniew and Meifod. Powys County Council<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0Powys councillors voted unanimously to call on the Welsh Government to pause wind turbine applications in the county.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,728,4884,379,12630,12,285,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-488987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-local-hubs","12":"tag-mid-wales","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115351288586626103","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}