How Stroud council is encouraging renewables in its Local Plan

How is Action 29 tackling the climate crisis?

The climate benefits of renewable energy are well-known. The government has set targets for increasing offshore wind generation, but the UK needs more onshore wind and solar too.  Onshore wind sites must be allocated through the planning process alongside other land designations in Local Plans. 

Stroud District Council has put carbon neutrality by 2030 at the heart of its plans for the area, including a focus on renewable energy. National planning policy doesn’t support onshore wind, but Stroud District Council is taking a proactive approach. It is encouraging new wind and solar installations by identifying opportunities in the area as part of its Local Plan, though these areas of potential are still subject to other policies included in the Plan. 

Renewable energy growth is explicitly linked to carbon neutrality in the authority’s most recent Local Plan.  

Delivery policy ES2 outlines criteria for the development of renewable schemes, including:  

• Developments are likely to be successful if they are in areas identified by the council as suitable for wind or solar in its "policies map". This identifies all land with the technical potential for renewables. 
• Developers of renewable energy schemes should engage with local communities as early in their projects as possible. Support will be given to proposals that are led by or meet the needs of local people.

How Stroud’s policy encourages more onshore wind while complying with national policy

Identifying all land in the district with the technical potential for renewables was a key aim of the policy. Doing so ensures that onshore wind proposals are compliant with National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) without limiting the future potential for onshore wind. 

The NPPF sets very specific restrictions on wind development. It dictates that wind energy projects should not receive planning permission unless they are in an area formally identified as suitable by a local or neighbourhood plan. Wind proposals must also have the full backing of communities – a higher bar than is set for other developments, including fossil fuel extraction. This has resulted in few Local Plans proactively allocating sites for onshore wind. Site suitability is more flexible for solar than for wind.  

In order to comply with the NPPF, Stroud District Council made sure it would have evidence to back its policy. In 2019 it commissioned the Centre for Sustainable Energy and Land Use Consultants to assess renewable energy opportunities within Stroud, including various scenario models up to 2040.  

The result was a survey of all the potentially viable sites in the district. This functions as a technical evidence base underpinning the local plan. Without this assessment, the crucial policies map included in the local plan would not have been possible, significantly limiting wind expansion.  

Some sites need special consideration – proposals within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Severn Estuary will be considered, but only where the benefits of the development can demonstrably outweigh its harms. 

The council can now legally boost both standalone wind and solar generation in the district, subject to public examination and inspection.  

What impact has the project had?

Stroud’s renewable energy resource assessment noted that, as of June 2019, about 12% of the energy produced within Stroud was from renewable sources. The council’s 2030 Strategy Master Plan, adopted in 2021, sets out the context, rationale and approach for tackling climate and ecological challenges. One of the strategic goals included in the Master Plan seeks to at least treble the proportion of renewable energy generation within the district from the current level of 12%.

For each type of renewable energy, the assessment identified what schemes (both community-owned and commercial) currently exist across the district, and what projects have received approval for future development: 

Wind

• 4 wind turbines are already in operation generating a total of 3.5 MW of energy (Sharpness Docs, Lynch Knoll, and two at Mountenays and Cherry Rock).  
• Technical capacity for wind generation of up to 336 MW in the district, saving an estimated 198,017 tonnes of CO₂ emissions a year.  
• The greatest potential for future expansion of wind energy in Stroud is through small and mid-sized wind turbines. 
• 3 wind developments have received approval in the district: Partnership for Renewables turbine at Sharpness; 2 Resilient Energy turbines under a community benefit society model; and Ecotricity’s new Alveston wind park.  

Solar

The assessment identified 7 ground-mounted solar projects that had either received consent or were already installed, with a total capacity of at least 68.4 MW.  

Hydropower

The assessment found Stroud has little capacity for hydropower, though historically the Stroud Valleys were powered by watermills. There may be limited opportunities for hydroelectric schemes in and around these mills.

What made this work?

Cross-party political consensus

Stroud District Council is governed by an alliance of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green councillors, all of whom backed the focus on renewable energy in the Local Plan.

Strategic support

The council’s Strategic Head of Development Services was also highly enthusiastic and had detailed knowledge of the ins and outs of the National Planning Policy Framework to make the expansion of renewables in Stroud feasible.  

Youth involvement

From 2017 onwards the council worked with Stroud Youth Council on the local plan. Young people made it clear that renewable energy was a key priority for them. 

Partnering with the youth council was a deliberate decision by the council to develop the skills of Stroud’s future leaders, with a view to ensuring long-term consistency in decision-making. 

Community support and demand

Stroud District Council received several queries from parish councils wishing to explore opportunities for community renewable energy generation, inspired to support the council’s 2030 ambition.

Support for the policy was also demonstrated during the consultation process for the Local Plan, policy ES2 encouraging renewable energy received just one formal objection – much lower than for many other proposed policies.

Overall, Stroud had significant demand for renewable energy generation at all levels – from councillors to directors and officers, to communities and young people. 

Local assets

One of the biggest employers in the district is Ecotricity, a renewable energy generation company that builds wind turbines and solar panels. Stroud has existing local assets that would facilitate the expansion of in-district renewable energy generation while also creating jobs for local people. Although this is a big asset for Stroud, most other local authority areas will have local renewable energy companies (at least fitting solar panels). 

Evidence base

Stroud’s renewable energy resource assessment provided an essential evidence base to enable the council to update its Local Plan policy to maximise space for renewables – and especially onshore wind – within the constraints of the National Planning Policy Framework. As a result, Stroud District Council is confident that it has met all the legal obligations required for its ambition to improve the prospects for wind development in the district. 

What resources were needed?

Stroud District Council invested in commissioning the renewable energy resource assessment, which cost £20,000. Occasional input from council officers, particularly the planning strategy team, was necessary during the development of the assessment. Planning officers continue to analyse feedback on new policies and discuss possible modifications, with potential for future updates to evidence bases such as Stroud’s renewable energy resources assessment.  

The council has three full time climate officers and a budget allocated to facilitate its drive towards carbon neutrality by 2030, but consideration of carbon neutrality is present across council services. The council has also worked with the board of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty regarding the landscape impact of wind energy proposals.  

Besides this, updating Local Plans is a statutory requirement for all local authorities. The work to ensure that renewable energy allocation was woven into the Local Plan did not incur any unexpected financial costs during the writing of the plan.  

Lessons from Stroud

National policy is still unhelpful – but can be changed

Stroud developed its strong policy despite the unhelpful policies in the NPPF, but reform at a national level would help all councils to boost onshore wind sites. 

In July 2021, the UK government published its revised National Planning Policy Framework. Campaigners and commentators hoped that the existing barriers to wind would be removed, but this did not happen. The rules permit the continued extraction of coal if benefits ‘clearly outweigh’ impact, and the limitations on onshore wind remain.

Very few local authorities have functional policies for onshore wind, and this is likely to remain the case without change in the National Planning Policy Framework. Gathering the necessary evidence to justify suitable sites for renewable allocation is resource-intensive, so this legal requirement is absent in many councils’ Local Plans, largely ruling out wind.

The second requirement – that wind developments have full local backing – is a discouraging influence on developers and sets a high bar that few applications overcome.

The ability of ambitious local authorities like Stroud to meet carbon targets that go beyond the national 2050 deadline is constrained by the lack of planning policies that facilitate, not hinder, renewables. 

Reform of planning at a national level is necessary and councils should be proactive in seeking reform when the National Planning Policy Framework is reviewed (expected again in 2022). 

Restrictions will vary in different locations

Further barriers for other councils might include the proximity of potential sites to national parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, green belts or other ecologically important sites (though Stroud’s example shows these can be appropriately accounted for). Sometimes tensions arise between increasing renewable energy generation and conservation concerns. Finding solutions to these is important, which will be facilitated by dialogue with stakeholders and robust evidence about any risks in sensitive locations.

Urban areas may have less available land for standalone renewable energy generation and may need to impose minimum distance restrictions to houses for wind turbines. Community engagement will be important and sometimes roof-mounted solar may be a better solution in urban settings.

Conrad Moore, Principal Planner at Stroud District Council.  

Useful information

To find out more, contact Stroud’s planning strategy team by emailing [email protected].

Read Stroud’s draft Local Plan and the Renewable Energy Resources Assessment.

Friends of the Earth's view

Not enough councils are identifying sites for renewable energy – especially for onshore wind – due to unhelpful national planning policies.  So it’s encouraging that Stroud council has developed a proactive and evidence-based policy to boost renewables that complies with the National Planning Policy Framework. 

Hopefully, more councils will be bolder in allocating the space that is urgently needed to increase onshore wind generation. 

Councils should also require renewable energy such as solar panels or heat pumps in new developments (Action 32 of the Climate Action Plan).

Friends of the Earth is showcasing specific examples of good practice in tackling climate change, but that doesn’t mean we endorse everything that a council is doing

This case study was produced by Ashden and Friends of the Earth.