Onshore windfarms could be coming to countryside around Swindon

Launching the plan, Energy Security Minister Michael Shanks was speaking in sight of the North Wessex Downs and the prehistoric Uffington White Horse during a visit to the nearby Westmill Energy solar and wind farm, just north of Shrivenham,

Addressing planning applications for future windfarms, he said: “We don’t want every decision to be ‘Yes’ – but  when it is ‘Yes’ we want everything to be quicker.”

And while saying the government’s plan is to make it easier and quicker for onshore wind schemes in England to get planning permission, he said residents will always be able to make their feelings heard if they fear important landscapes or wildlife might be damaged.

He said: “Every proposal will have to go through the proper planning process. And people will always have a voice in that process, and things like national landscapes and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty will be taken into account in that process.

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The minister added: “It’s not for me to say, now, whether one place or another is inappropriate for onshore wind or not – that’s a decision for that process, but we do want to speed that process up.

“We don’t want every decision to be Yes, but when it is yes, we want everything to be quicker.”

Having lifted a decade-long ban on onshore wind power projects in England, imposed by the Conservative government, last year, Mr Shanks said the government wanted to encourage schemes: “There is no pipeline of schemes coming forward in England, so we really have to get things rolling.

“We have an ambitious target of all the UK’s energy being decarbonised by 2023, and onshore wind is a critical part of that.

“I was told by the people in charge here that it took 18 years to get permission — that’s appalling.”

Mr Shanks said the Westmill Energy farm, which is two separate co-operatives managed together, with  3,000 members combined, was a model he’d like to see repeated elsewhere.

He said: “If there are schemes generating energy, there should be benefits to the community as there are here, we are not agnostic in this government about who owns things like this, and we’d like to see more schemes like this.

“Onshore wind is just part of the mix we need to see in this country, along with solar, nuclear and offshore wind – but it is crucial to our security energy and our climate crisis targets.”