Wiltshires wind regulation: blowing evidence-based policymaking out of the window
Wiltshire County Council is split over new local regulations that would prevent wind turbines from being constructed because of alleged risk to residents from blades breaking off the turbines. But where is the research showing windfarms represent a danger to the public?
Wiltshire’s Conservative council majority voted the measures through last Saturday. The amendment to existing planning policy means that turbines more than 25 metres high must be built at least one kilometre from homes. Turbines higher than 50 metres must be built two kilometres away, while those higher than 150 metres must be three kilometres away.
The policy is part of a county planning strategy and isn’t yet official, the council told us, as the measures currently await approval by central government. If enacted, they would essentially mean no more wind turbines could be built in Wiltshire.
According to Wiltshire’s Gazette and Herald:
“Council bosses claim the distances are needed to ensure the safety of residents in the rare chance that one of the [turbine] blades was to break away.”
Local Liberal Democrats opposed the measures, leading Conservative councillor Toby Sturgis to say primly that he was “quite amazed” his counterparts who voted against the measure “want to compromise on safety”.
But Lib Dem councillor Simon Killane sounded somewhat amazed by the situation himself, asking in the Guardian, “Where is the evidence”?
He said Wiltshire needs a “proper policy” that would ensure each application was dealt with “on an individual basis, looking at their site-specific issues”. He pointed out to us that prior to the Conservatives’ proposed amendment, the county strategy contained a clause requiring that each site be assessed for the turbines’ potential effect on biodiversity and local aesthetics.
The new amendment seems to hang on the introduction of a blanket argument about “safety”. So what evidence was presented to the council regarding the safety of wind turbines? Apparently none – Killane told us no-one presented any evidence of breakaway turbine blades harming the public. We’re awaiting more information from the council.
According to local press, Wiltshire’s new policy is based on Lord Reay of Caithness’s Wind Turbines (Minimum Distance from Residential Premises) Bill, which had its first reading in the House of Lords in May. The proposed bill contains the same recommended mandatory distances between homes and turbines.
Introducing the bill, Reay spoke of the “baleful effect” of the “scale” of wind turbines, but he made no mention of concerns about blades breaking off.
Have wind turbines hurt the public?
Objections to the size or aesthetics of turbines aside, is there any evidence that they have hurt the public?
We looked for information on wind-related injuries and deaths. Most prominent is an article in the Telegraph in 2011, which cites figures collated by a group called the Caithness Windfarm Information Forum (CWIF) – which coincidentally hails from Lord Reay’s seat.
CWIF “campaigns against turbines in Scotland and publishes [wind turbine] accidents – backed up by media reports – on its website”, as the Telegraph puts it. Like Lord Reay’s bill, CWIF advocates a two kilometre distance between windfarms and residential housing, citing instances of “blade failure” as one of the main reasons.
CWIF’s database of “wind turbine accident data” takes what you might call an omnivorous approach to assessing the wind industry’s safety record. It links around 90 deaths to wind turbines since 1981, citing examples from the US, Canada, Japan and China as well as the UK.
We’ve had a close look at the figures, however, and found CWIF has a very broad and rather questionable approach to classifying wind turbine-related failure, deaths or injuries.
For example, it has included incidents such as several members of the public falling after climbing turbines, planes flying into turbines, and three motorists who crashed after apparently being distracted by a windfarm. Several others were killed in incidents such as collisions with trucks carrying turbines, or health and safety incidents on construction sites.
Of injuries or fatalities, the database contains only one incident where someone was injured by a falling turbine blade – a construction worker in Spain, whose pelvis was fractured in an accident at a windfarm construction site.
Although the anti-wind group takes a broad definition of accidents ’caused’ by wind turbines, it has not documented any cases in which anyone has been hurt by blade failure from an active turbine.
The tip of the iceberg?
However, in presenting its database, CWIF argues its figures may only be the ‘tip of the iceberg’:
“Data […] is by no means fully comprehensive – CWIF believe [sic] that what is attached may only be the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in terms of numbers of accidents and their frequency.
“Indeed on 11 December 2011 the Daily Telegraph reported that RenewableUK confirmed that there had been 1500 wind turbine accidents and incidents in the UK alone in the past 5 years. Data here reports only 142 UK accidents from 2006-2010 and so the figures here may only represent 9% of actual accidents.”
This is a reference to the same Telegraph article, which quotes figures from RenewableUK, the UK’s renewables industry body, covering all health and safety incidents related to its windfarms.
The Telegraph headline was ‘1,500 accidents and incidents on UK wind farms”, but confusingly the article also reports “53 major or dangerous incidents”, so we went back to RenewableUK for more detail.
What do RenewableUK’s figures say?
What the Telegraph didn’t highlight is that RenewableUK gave it details of every single incident in which a possible health and safety risk had been logged since 2007, as well as every accident. This includes potential health and safety concerns that didn’t lead to accidents, like ladders left in the wrong place or cupboards left unlocked.
According to RenewableUK’s health and safety department, the 53 accidents figure the Telegraph noted breaks down to three fatalities, 10 serious injuries, 22 minor injuries and 18 dangerous occurrences – such as a tool box falling from a ladder during construction, which was recorded as an incident rather than an injury. This adds up to 53.
A RenewableUK spokesperson told us:
“Records kept by the UK’s Health and Safety Executive show that since 2007 there have been three fatalities among workers in the onshore wind industry, involving falls from ladders or driving accidents. Ten serious injuries were recorded among construction and maintenance workers in the UK over the same five-year period.”
That leaves over 1,000 occasions when possible hazards were logged in the interests of health and safety – something RenewableUK points out is normal practice in any industry.
Finally, all of these incidents involved workers in the wind industry. RenewableUK told us that no member of the public has ever been directly hurt or killed by a wind turbine in the UK, something that our close reading of CWIF’s statistics appears to support.
Evidence-based policy
It looks like Wiltshire’s proposed new legislation on the distance between turbines and houses – for which the apparent rationale is “safety” – may have been passed on the basis of very little evidence.
We have considered records from both an anti-wind group and RenewableUK. For different reasons, you would expect each to compile detailed records of injuries or deaths caused by wind turbine blade failure. Neither has recorded any.
That’s not to say blades have not fallen – there appear to be examples of blade failure where blades have hit houses, for example. But planning decisions should be based on hard evidence and careful consideration, something Wiltshire’s original planning directive on windfarms stressed the need for. At the moment, evidence that blade failure presents a significant risk to the public is absent.
According to the Guardian, other councils are discussing similar distance restrictions. Some people don’t like wind turbines, and it’s clear their views should be taken into account as part of the planning process. But if public safety is suggested as a reason to not build windfarms, it should be on the basis of solid evidence. In Wiltshire’s case it seems the decision may have been taken on the basis of no evidence at all.