100 signatures reached
To: Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire Combined Authority
No Windfarms on West Yorkshire Upland Peatland
We call on the Mayor of West Yorkshire Combined Authority to remember the legal duty of all public authorities to conserve and enhance biodiversity, and as Chair of West Yorkshire Combined Authority Board, to lead it to the decision to protect West Yorkshire peat moors by ruling them out as a location for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project wind farms.
Why is this important?
Public authorities have a legal duty to conserve and enhance biodiversity. This could be put at risk by putting big wind farms on upland peatland.
West Yorkshire Combined Authority needs to bear this in mind in preparing the Spatial Development Strategy. It is currently setting policies for the development and use of land across West Yorkshire over the next 25 years.
The Peatland Alliance support wind farms – but not at the expense of nature. Peat scientists and nature groups like Yorkshire Wildlife Trust agree that big wind farms should be located on mineral soils, not peat moors.
Spatial development strategies are free to set policy in relation to the protection of peatlands, if it is of strategic importance to their area. It clearly is here. West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s Industrial Strategy - also in preparation - has confirmed that West Yorkshire’s peat moors are of strategic importance as a natural infrastructure asset.
They are critical to achieving England’s Net Zero target and mitigating climate change, due to their natural capture of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by peat-forming vegetation, and their huge carbon store that has built up over thousands of years.
They also reduce flood risk in the valleys, provide drinking water, support a wide range of specialist biodiversity – much of it endangered, and form the north south corridor between the Peak District and North Pennines, which is essential for nature survival and recovery.
These vital ecosystem functions would be put at risk by building windfarms on upland peat moors. Siting wind farms there would undermine the green transition.
There is no need to site wind farms on windy uplands – manufacturers have designed turbines to work well in the lower wind speeds prevalent in much of mainland Europe.
Please call for a Spatial Development Strategy that keeps West Yorkshire upland peatland free of wind farms (and puts wind farms on mineral soils).
West Yorkshire Combined Authority needs to bear this in mind in preparing the Spatial Development Strategy. It is currently setting policies for the development and use of land across West Yorkshire over the next 25 years.
The Peatland Alliance support wind farms – but not at the expense of nature. Peat scientists and nature groups like Yorkshire Wildlife Trust agree that big wind farms should be located on mineral soils, not peat moors.
Spatial development strategies are free to set policy in relation to the protection of peatlands, if it is of strategic importance to their area. It clearly is here. West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s Industrial Strategy - also in preparation - has confirmed that West Yorkshire’s peat moors are of strategic importance as a natural infrastructure asset.
They are critical to achieving England’s Net Zero target and mitigating climate change, due to their natural capture of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by peat-forming vegetation, and their huge carbon store that has built up over thousands of years.
They also reduce flood risk in the valleys, provide drinking water, support a wide range of specialist biodiversity – much of it endangered, and form the north south corridor between the Peak District and North Pennines, which is essential for nature survival and recovery.
These vital ecosystem functions would be put at risk by building windfarms on upland peat moors. Siting wind farms there would undermine the green transition.
There is no need to site wind farms on windy uplands – manufacturers have designed turbines to work well in the lower wind speeds prevalent in much of mainland Europe.
Please call for a Spatial Development Strategy that keeps West Yorkshire upland peatland free of wind farms (and puts wind farms on mineral soils).
