Scout Moor Wind Farm - Future Plans

Future Plans

Over the lifetime of the wind farm, Peel Holdings' energy subsidiary, Peel Wind Power Ltd, will provide up to £500,000 to help landowners create biodiverse areas on the land surrounding the moor. A prime target habitat envisaged to be enhanced and re-created under the Habitat Enhancement Plan is upland blanket bog and important habitats for skylarks and wading birds on the moorland fringe. To receive funding, landowners within an identified area will need to apply to a panel made up of representatives from Peel, the local authorities and independent ecological experts. This panel will meet regularly throughout the year.

Peel Wind Power are members of RenewableUK and state in their member's profile that they are actively seeking new opportunities in the renewable energy sector. In November 2008, the company announced a two-year agreement to look at developing wind farms on land owned by UK Coal. If the 14 sites encompassed by the agreement were successfully developed, they would have the potential for 54 wind turbines generating up to 133 megawatts of power. Peel Energy director Steven Underwood said: "This agreement is an important step for Peel Energy, significantly expanding its onshore pipeline and gaining access to some of the UK's best potential wind farm locations." The Peel group holds a 28% stake in UK Coal.

At a private meeting held in May 2007 between developers, EnergieKontor UK, and invited local councillors, plans were put forward for another large wind farm consisting of 24 turbines on the moors above nearby Haslingden, spanning Thirteen Stone Hill and Oswaldtwistle Moor. Following the meeting Catherine Pilling, a Rossendale Liberal Democrat councillor, expressed her view that the natural beauty of the Rossendale Valley was under threat as it was increasingly being targeted by wind farm developers. "Our party is very much in favour of renewable energy," she said, "but Rossendale is an area of outstanding beauty, and you have to ask: Would they be building a similar thing in the Lake District?" Rossendale Borough Council leader Duncan Ruddick representing the electoral ward of Worsley in Rossendale, the proposed site of the new wind farm, said he was against wind farms and would be campaigning against it and speaking at the Development Control committee when it came. The leader of the Labour local councillors was also opposed to the plan, saying that he was concerned about the size of the turbines and that the visual impact on the "beautiful West Pennine Moors" would be devastating. Planning permission for the development was granted by Hyndburn Council in March 2010.