Bernice with her 'South West Renewable Energy Champion’ award

Bernice Roberts, Principal Environmental Planner at the Landmark Practice was awarded a runner up prize at the Regen SW Green Energy Awards 2009, held on Tuesday 10 November at the Assembly Rooms, Bath. This annual event, hosted this year by the BBC’s Jonathan Dimbleby, is a celebration of the success of the South West’s renewable energy industry.

Bernice was nominated for the ‘South West Renewable Energy Champion’ category which recognises outstanding work of achievements of individuals that make a real difference to the development of renewable energy in the South West.

Wind turbine seminars

A short series of three half day workshops entitled ‘Supporting Planning Practice for Wind Turbine Developments’, held at the end of October at Government Offices South West in Bristol, have received very positive feedback and requests for repeat events

The workshops, organised jointly by The Landmark Practice, Regen SW and the RTPI, all focused on providing basic skills training to help local authority planning officers to address the specific demands of wind turbines in planning.

The seminars covered all aspects of wind turbine development, from drafting of planning policy, project inception, EIA screening and scoping and wind turbine technology basics, through an understanding of the developers perspective and dealing with community wind applications, to management of the development process and planning applications, wind farm conditions, dealing with appeals and sources of expert support.

Copies of the presentations made at the seminars will soon be avaiable at the RTPI Environmental Planning and Protection website.

Wind Tubines

The UK is subject to extremely challenging energy targets, which commit the country to producing 15% of all energy consumed in transport, heat and power generation from renewable sources by 2020, from a baseline of 2.25% in 2008.

The Government’s Renewable Energy Strategy (RES), published in July 2009, anticipates that on-shore wind generation will be required to provide a significant proportion of the new deployment to meet targets. This will represent a seven-fold increase in wind energy capacity.

The planning process to bring forward wind turbine development is potentially time consuming and costly to developers. The Landmark Practice specialises in preparation of Environmental Statements to inform applications for wind turbine developments.

We offer extensive experience of planning for wind turbines, and a one hundred percent success rate for the planning applications that we have managed to date. The Practice provides in-house capability in the following key disciplines:

• EIA Project Management
• Environmental Planning
• Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment
• Ecological Services

More information here

The three half-day sessions, led by The Landmark Practice, will be held over a period of 2 days.  Aimed at a

range of skill levels, the seminars will provide basic to technical skills training to help local authority planning

officers to address specific demands of wind turbines in planning. The workshops will provide technical information to planning officers preparing energy and sustainable development policy documents, and those dealing with planning applications for wind turbine developments; technical issues of wind turbine technology; key impacts e.g. aircraft radar, noise, telecoms, ecology; planning for community scale wind including understanding process, best practice and

liaison with support agencies; EIA screening & scoping; planning process & best practice, delivering mitigation, framing planning conditions.

For more information contact: Nicola Gough at network.manager@rtpi.org.uk, Gemma Melvill at

Gemma.melvill@thelandmarkpractice.com or Cheryl Hiles at chiles@regensw.co.uk

Photomontage of proposed wind turbines

The Landmark Practice’s recent success with wind power planning consents at Avonmouth has featured in Planning Magazine (10th April 2009 edition).

The article appears in the ‘Private Sector News’ section of the magazine.

Download article here

This is the third wind energy scheme to be granted planning approval in Bristol and The Landmark Practice has managed the environmental planning issues for all three:

• Bristol Port Company’s three iconic wind turbines, granted consent in December 2006, now in operation and clearly visible from the M5 motorway
• Planning consent for two 3 mega watt turbines for Bristol City Council, on a disused oil depot on the shores of the Severn Estuary, granted consent in January 2009
• Planning consent for four 3 mega watt turbines for Wessex Water, granted in March 2009, to be built at the sewage works beside the M49

Collectively, these nine wind turbines will generate the same output of a moderately sized wind farm, and will make a significant contribution to the South West Region’s renewable energy targets. At a local scale, they will generate well over 50% of the former Avon’s entire 2010 renewable target.

Dr Mark Wright, Chairman of the BCC North Area Planning Committee, commented:

“Avonmouth is an area with excellent wind resource and also significant power demand. It makes obvious sense to put these two together in the most obvious way by installing wind power turbines. The approved plans in this regard are welcome and I look forward to future sets of plans being brought forward.”

When assessing the viability of the latest Avonmouth wind power project, Wessex Water and The Landmark Practice faced twin challenges:

• Proximity to a large urban population
• Proximity to the internationally important bird protection area of the Severn Estuary.

The Landmark Practice’s detailed environmental assessment of potential impacts proved that the wind turbines could be accommodated without damage to nature conservation interests. Careful attention was paid to the precise siting of the turbines to ensure that the effect on wildlife is mitigated. Public consultation identified considerable public support for wind turbines in the Bristol area.

Bernice Roberts, Principal Environmental Planner at The Landmark Practice commented that:

“Opposition to wind turbines usually stems from fear of the unknown, or of change. To allay such fears, it is essential that the environmental assessments we carry out to inform these schemes are thorough, accurate and robust. This helps the planning authority to reach a properly informed and confident decision.”

Bristol City Council’s North Area Planning Committee granted unanimous approval to the Wessex Water wind power project on 26 March.

Download Press Release

Full story here

In conjunction with PPS Group (stakeholder communications experts) and Burges Salmon LLP (solicitors) Bernice Roberts (the Landmark Practice’s Principal Environmental Planner) has been presenting expert advice at breakfast seminars to a wide ranging audience across the country.

The highly successful seminars, entitled “Generating Public Support for Major Wind Farm Developments”, have been held in London, Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester.

Further venues and dates are being considered.

More information to follow.

His unstinting hard work and first class research abilities have been invaluable to all within the office. Dan has now moved on and we all miss his wry humour. Perhaps he may return one day!