‘It’s a Labour stitch-up’: The battle behind Britain’s biggest wind farm

On the Lancashire border, residents are still unhappy about the 26 turbines already in place – and now 21 more could be forced upon them

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On a sunny November day like this, crisp, clear and gently autumnal, John Steele lives in what you might call a pastoral idyll. He walks us up the hills above his farm on Scout Moor, right on the border between Lancashire and the rural northern tip of Greater Manchester. Birds swoop across the glinting reservoir below. A pheasant proudly stands on top of a dry stone wall, seeming to contemplate the spectacular view extending right across the Pennines and the distant Peak District. And, all the while, the constant soundtrack is the steady swoosh and hum of the wind turbines that pockmark this remarkable landscape.
Scout Moor is already home to the second largest onshore wind farm in England, its 26 wind turbines exporting electricity to the National Grid since 2008. And now, after the Labour government lifted the de facto ban on new onshore wind farms, the prospect of Scout Moor II is back on this unique horizon. It would make this beautiful moorland site the largest onshore wind farm in the country.
How many more 180m turbines will be needed to make this development power the 100,000 homes its developers Cubico are promising remains to be seen. They say “up to 21”. One thing is for sure, Steele doesn’t know what it will mean for the place he loves.
“I can understand that there’ll be opposition to the plans,” he begins with a sigh. “People don’t like change.”
There certainly was opposition last time; a 2015 proposal to expand the number of turbines to 42 was supported by Rossendale and Rochdale Councils but caused uproar in local communities and was refused by the then secretary of state following a public inquiry. Since those decisions, it was effectively impossible to get an onshore wind project through planning – one public objection could scupper a proposal. There have been no large-scale onshore wind farm proposals since, even after Michael Gove attempted to lift some of the restrictions last year after backbench Conservatives raised concerns.
Steele isn’t completely opposed to wind turbines himself. Indeed, he wanted to install a single, nine-metre turbine on his land to generate his own electricity.
“But it was thrown out at the planning stage on the grounds that it was too high!”
You can forgive Steele, then, for being cynical about these plans. “At the end of the day, the company will do what they want, and we won’t have any choice. We hear this company is talking about 21 wind turbines – it smacks of one rule for one, and one rule for everyone else.”
And that sense of Scout Moor II being imposed on this community rather than complementing it is very apparent back down the hill in Edenfield. The tops of the existing Scout Moor wind turbines are dotted along its skyline here; walk down the market street in this small Lancashire village, past the bakers, butchers and excellent community cafe The Drop Off, and you can’t miss them.
Under the current plans, residents may not really notice any more turbines – the visual impact should largely be over the hill, on the slopes on the other side of Scout Moor in Whitworth, where the Conservative leader of Rossendale’s Council’s opposition Scott Smith resides. In fact, in Edenfield, the traffic to the quarry access road needed to get the turbines up to one of the windiest parts of England is likely to be the bigger problem.
Still, at Edenfield’s local community centre, where the first Scout Moor II consultation is taking place, parishioners are out in force – and passions are running high. Geoff Rigby from nearby Turn Village is chairman of its Residents Association, representing around 100 households. He led opposition to the Scout Moor extension in 2015 and says the experience is still “raw”.
“We’ve been shafted once with 26 turbines, which I live very close to, and I was never consulted about them. So here there’s going to be a lot of cynicism amongst people who are going to have to be persuaded,” says Rigby.
“Back then, we were extremely lucky that we had a Tory Government and could force an enquiry and reach the Inspector.
“Frankly I think it’s a stitch-up. We’ve now got a Labour Government and a Labour Council, and our council will simply do anything for money.”
The Scout Moor II proposals certainly try hard to make their case. They promise to keep turbines at least a kilometre from any residential building, providing “homegrown energy that lowers bills, enhances energy security, and advances the UK’s transition to a clean energy economy”. The website also talks of a long-term moorland restoration scheme to enhance biodiversity, and a £20m Community Wealth Fund managed locally to ensure the community benefits.
“I like the words, they’re all good and they’ve tried to counter every single one of the Inspector’s criticisms,” says Rigby. “Do I believe it though? Not at this point because we’ve been treated extremely poorly historically.
“Unfortunately, this area has a very poor reputation for people coming and doing the opposite of what they say they’re going to do.
“I’ve definitely got more questions than answers.”
Rob Tate, head of development for Cubico UK, seems to understand, at least, that there will be different views in these close-knit communities. “It’s still very early days in terms of what our proposals are and we’re very keen to get the local community’s view about how these proposals can evolve over the coming months,” he says.
“All the ideas generated by the community will be listened to and taken back and where we can, and where it’s feasible to do so, we’ll try and feed them into the design process.”
And it’s the “where it’s feasible to do so” that is the sticking point. When some parts of the local community clearly don’t believe in the design and planning process, what say do they really have?
Labour councillor Nick Harris, executive member for economic development at Rossendale Borough says that “as an administration, we’re taking the position of a cautious welcome to the proposals,” but admits they haven’t actually seen the “actual turbine locations or the environmental impact assessment”.
Meanwhile, Smith says: “We all understand the need for clean energy and associated infrastructure but there needs to be full and meaningful consultation on a project of this scale.
“It’s also of the utmost importance that everything possible is done to minimise the impact of any project on our communities, both as work takes place and in the following years.
“As this process begins, we encourage residents across the valley to engage with the consultation, and to contact their councillors to have their say.”
So it’ll be fascinating to see what the planning application actually consists of when it is made in spring 2025 – and who will stand up for the communities it affects. It’s likely to be the test case for a whole host of other onshore windfarm projects in England – reports have suggested that at least six major energy companies are prospecting for windfarms and readying proposals of their own.
Peter Rowe, development manager for Cubico UK, tries to reassure everyone at Edenfield Community Centre that they will be listened to.
“We’re still doing a lot of surveys up on the moor,” he says. “Alongside all the feedback from the consultation and the ongoing technical works, we can then start to refine down what the final scheme looks like.”
But who will it actually benefit? The 100,000 homes powered in Greater Manchester, or the people who live here? Doubling onshore wind capacity to 30GW by 2030 as the Labour government wants to do, is going to require 22,000 wind turbines across England – or 11,000 more in just six years.
Rowe seems to appreciate the bigger picture.
“Well, on a macro level. you’ve got the contribution it’ll make in terms of clean energy,” he says.
“On a local level, we’re talking about a Community Wealth Fund of around £500,000 per annum for the lifetime of the project, and we’re liaising with residents about how and where this could be deployed for the best possible benefit.
“We’re also proposing a moorland restoration scheme. A lot of the moorland up there isn’t at the level of quality you’d expect it to be, so the wind farm can deliver that restoration project to ensure that all the peat can store more carbon, reduce flood risk, and promote biodiversity.”
The problem is, the experience of nearly 20 years of wind turbine ‘consultations’ in this area means many people simply don’t believe him. It’s this cocktail of apathy about local government and powerlessness which is driving the criticism – not necessarily the visual impact of the turbines themselves.
Local resident Mark Greenwood is walking across Scout Moor. He stops and points at the turbine that he passes by on every one of his regular moorland walks. “Look, I’d prefer it not to be here,” he sighs. “But I suppose it’s a necessary part of progression.”
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