14 November 2008

Ecotricity and QEH’s application for a single wind turbine to power the hospital was turned down by West Norfolk Council's Development Control Board in April this year. Ecotricity have today announced they will take the project to appeal.

“We are taking this project to appeal and are confident that the only objection currently raised against it can be resolved. It’s a shameful waste of time and money but sadly it’s an all too common example of a planning process not fit for purpose.

Two thirds of all wind projects are refused by District Councils at the planning stage, and two thirds of all appeals are upheld by the government – a lot of bad decisions get overturned, eventually. Wind energy is the only major generation source that depends for planning on District Councils – the government deals with all others for very good reasons. District councils are not up to the job, on the whole. Local authorities routinely abdicate from the decision making process, refusing applications on unjustified and spurious grounds, making little attempt to understand the issues and resolve conflicts.” Dale Vince, MD Ecotricity

If the project goes ahead it will be the first initiative of its kind within the public sector. Ecotricity’s Merchant Wind Power model has been around since 2001, when they built the UK's very first such project for Sainsbury's. Since then a host of commercial organisations have taken advantage of it. Household names such as Ford, The Pru, Co op bank, Michelin and B&Q are all benefiting from their own source of green generation, real carbon savings (not offsets) and lower electricity bills.

“The QEH is blazing a trail which we believe will very soon become a well trodden path. The public sector should be leading the way in the fight against climate change, and the biggest step that actually can be taken in that regard, is to change where electricity comes from. We’re facing the twin problems of a global energy crisis – the world is running out of oil and gas – and we can’t afford to burn the stuff anyway because of climate change. Wind energy is a local resource, it grows here in the UK and we can just make our own energy from it and solve both problems.” Dale Vince.

Barbara Cummings, Director of Performance and Informatics at the QEH said, 'We are hoping for a positive outcome from this appeal for two reasons. First, we are very proud of our achievements so far in reducing our carbon footprint and a wind turbine would enable us to take this policy further. Second, a wind turbine will allow us to make savings on our energy bill. And every penny we can save is a penny more available for patient care.'

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27 April 2008

Our application to build a single turbine at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King's Lynn, was turned down today by West Norfolk Council's Development Control Board. We had put in a request to defer the decision for a few weeks while we worked with the MoD and the local Air Ambulance to make sure they were 100% happy with the project. The decision went against us by just one vote.

"We're disappointed with the decision. The two objections raised to the project could have both been resolved in a few weeks. Both the MoD and Air Ambulance supported our application to defer and confirmed to the Council that their issues could be resolved in a short time. The committee had it in their power to defer the application and the vote was a close one, 7-8 against. It's a shameful waste of time and money that we now either have to resubmit or go to appeal." Dale Vince, MD Ecotricity