National Trust Land Use Planning Adviser

Comment Date: Wed 11 Sep 2013

I write on behalf of the National Trust to comment on the above application. This sensitive site is within just 1km of Bodmin Moor AONB (LIVA; para 6.5.46). On Bodmin Moor, within the AONB, the National Trust owns Rough Tor (viewpoint 6), which is within 2.5 km of the site, and forms an iconic feature in the landscape: "The imposing summits of Brown Willy and the adjacent slightly lower Rough Tor are the highest points of land in Cornwall, their impression of wild remoteness emphasized by the absence of man made structures." (Bodmin Moor; Statement of Significance; Cornwall AONB Management Plan 2011-2016). The Trust also has extensive coastal land holdings in the area from Pentire Point to north of Bude, which are also within the Cornwall AONB. The Trust has a statutory duty under the National Trust Acts to promote the conservation of places of historic interest and natural beauty. The Trust is committed to the transition to more sustainable forms of energy generation, as both a producer and consumer in the energy system. However, whilst it supports a major increase in renewable energy generation it also believes that the location and design of all energy generation schemes should take account of the full range of environmental considerations, including the protection of valued landscapes. EIA Requirements and results The Environmental Statement (ES) could be said to fail in the purpose of Environmental Impact Assessment on the following counts: The final summary of the Non-Technical Summary (NTS, 10 Summary; p.28), in relation to the Landscape and Visual impact Assessment (LVIA), fails to summarise the likely significant effects, it merely states that that assessment has concluded that the development is acceptable in landscape and visual terms. However, the purpose of the ES is not to enter a planning judgement and determine acceptability, but to identify and describe the likely significant effects (EIA Regulations 2011; Schedule 4, Part 1[4]). The new draft national planning practice guidance makes clear the purpose of Environmental Impact Assessment is to ensure that a local planning authority has full knowledge of the likely significant effects on the environment so it can take these into account when deciding whether to grant planning permission. The House of Lords has also stressed in the case Berkeley v SSETR [2000] that the purpose of the EIA process is to provide individual citizens with sufficient information about the possible effects and give them the opportunity to make representations. A citizen reading just the summary of the Davidstow Wind Farm NTS would not be alerted to the fact that there are likely to be significant landscape and visual effects.

The key findings section of the NTS under Landscape and Visual fails to identify and summarise the numerous significant cumulative effects set out in paragraph 6.12.20 of the LVIA. The NTS key findings section downplays the other significant effects by describing them as 'localised', when an effect is either significant or not, and it is clear that effects may be significant over a 5km radius (LVIA paragraphs 6.7.18, 6.7.21, 6.7.34 and 6.7.37). The 'Summary and Conclusions' of the LIVA itself gives an incorrect summary under paragraph 6.12.17 as it states that the development will not have significant effects on landscape designations, when paragraph 6.12.5 makes quite clear that "the assessment of effects on landscape designations has identified significant effects" (LVIA; Paragraph 6.12.5), and two of the eight viewpoints that will undergo significant effects are from the Bodmin Moor AONB (LVIA; Paragraph 6.12.12). The 'Summary and Conclusions' of the LIVA also gives an incorrect summary under paragraph 6.12.17 in that it states that the development will not have significant effects on national local landscape character areas other than within which the site lies, when paragraph 6.12.3 makes quite clear that the Cornish Killas national landscape character area and Delabole Plateau local landscape character area have been assessed as being likely to experience significant effects as a result of the proposed development (LVIA; Paragraph 6.12.3) . To be clear, the application ES has actually identified the following adverse significant landscape and visual effects: National landscape designations - Bodmin Moor AONB Other landscape designations - Bodmin Moor AGHV National landscape character areas - Bodmin Moor national landscape character Area (CA 153) - Cornish Killas national landscape character area (CA 152) Local landscape character areas - Bodmin Moor local landscape character area (CA 32) - Delabole Plateau local landscape character area (CA 36) Viewpoints Eight of the twenty viewpoints will undergo significant effects, including: Viewpoint 6 Roughtor (Bodmin Moor AONB) - Viewpoint 9 Brown Willy (Bodmin Moor AONB) - Viewpoint 10 View towards Roughtor and Brown Willy Cumulative effects Significant cumulative effects are identified (LVIA, para 6.12.20), including: - Bodmin Moor AONB - Pentire Point to Widemouth AONB - Viewpoints from the AONB - Bodmin Moor national landscape character area. - Bodmin Moor local landscape character area. The ES should be resubmitted rectifying the errors identified. It should also respond to the recent DCLG national planning practice guidance for renewable and low carbon energy (July 2013) with regard to the information that should inform landscape and visual assessments. In particular information on sequential effects on visibility, which occur when an observer moves through a landscape, is identified as information that can usefully inform assessments, but this has not been undertaken for the Davidstow LVIA. Policy Background The need for renewable energy as set out in national policy is acknowledged (NPPF; paragraphs 93, 98; National Policy Statement for Renewable Energy Infrastructure [EN-3]).

However, the DCLG national planning practice guidance for renewable and low carbon energy (July 2013) makes clear that the need for renewable energy does not automatically override environmental protections (PPG for renewable and low carbon energy, 2013; Paragraph 5). A balancing exercise therefore needs to be undertaken. As part of the planning balance, or planning judgement, the National Planning Policy Framework requires the local authority to give great weight to the national conservation objective to conserve the landscape and scenic beauty in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (NPPF; para 115). There is also the general duty under section 85 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (AONBs) that relevant authorities 'shall have regard' to the purposes of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the new draft national planning practice guidance makes clear; "this duty is relevant in considering development proposals that are situated outside'.AONB, but which might have an impact on implementing the statutory purposes of these protected areas". The Cornwall AONB Management Plan (2011-2016) adopts a guiding principle that proposals for community and commercial wind turbines on Bodmin Moor and its setting, which have an adverse impact on the natural beauty of the moor, will not be supported (Guiding Principle 12.5). The Cornwall emerging Local Plan policy 15 on 'Renewable and Low Carbon Energy' makes clear that in and adjacent to Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty developments would not be allowed except in exceptional circumstances and should generally be very small scale in order that the natural beauty of these areas is conserved (Cornwall Local Plan; Strategic Policies; Pre-submission document; March 2013). The application Planning Statement makes a faulty assessment under emerging Cornwall Local Plan Policy 15 as it fails to pick up on the likely significant effects identified above under the 'EIA Requirements and results'. In paragraph 8.1.27 of the Planning Statement it downplays the landscape and visual effects, not identifying that there are significant effects, and instead adopting the inappropriate LVIA planning judgement over acceptability (which is questioned above). This new national planning practice guidance for renewable and low carbon energy (2013) advises that identifying suitable areas for renewable energy gives "greater certainty as to where such development will be permitted" (PPG for renewable energy, 2013; Paragraph 10). It gives guidance on how local authorities should identify such suitable areas, and advises that "landscape character areas could form the basis for considering which technologies at which scale may be appropriate in different types of location" (PPG for renewable energy, 2013; Paragraph 9). The supporting text to emerging Cornwall Local Plan Policy 15 states that in the case of wind "landscape character is seen as a key driver in determining the appropriate scale and

density of development. A broad landscape strategy informs the decision process. The strategy seeks to: Maintain the natural beauty of the AONB;" It makes clear that guidance has been prepared on the level of development likely to be appropriate within each of Cornwall's 40 Landscape Character Areas in 'An Assessment of Landscape Sensitivity to onshore wind and large-scale PV in Cornwall' (April 2011), which was prepared for Cornwall Council by Land Use Consultants. The completed Assessment of Landscape Sensitivity identifies that the Bodmin Moor Character Area (CA32) has the highest sensitivity to wind energy development, both within and outside the AONB. The landscape strategy is for a landscape without windfarms on the open moor, together with a landscape with occasional very small single wind turbines associated with farm buildings/settlements on the settled commons (such as LDU 308 where the site is located) and settled fringes of the moor, and that collectively these very small scale turbines should not have a defining influence on the overall experience of the landscape. If it were to be deemed acceptable to site the largest on-shore wind farm in Cornwall, one of the largest in the south-west, in an area that has been identified through landscape assessment to be of the highest sensitivity to wind energy development, which has a landscape strategy for only very small scale single wind turbines in this part of the LCA, and where it is acknowledged that there would be significant effect on a national landscape designation for which the NPPF sets a national conservation objective, then that would fly in the face of new national planning practice guidance which encourages the identification of suitable areas for renewable energy by undermining the Assessment of Landscape Sensitivity to onshore wind and large-scale PV in Cornwall (April 2011) in terms of its broad landscape strategy to inform the decision making process, and it would conflict with Cornwall's emerging local plan policy and the Cornwall AONB Management plan (20112016). Effects on the AONB The ES has identified there to be significant adverse effects on the Bodmin Moor AONB, together with views from within, and towards it. It has also identified significant adverse cumulative effects on both the Bodmin Moor AONB and the Pentire Point to Widemouth AONB. In two recent appeal decisions in the south-west for on-shore windfarms outside AONB, both for just four turbines, up to 120m high, the effect on the setting of the AONB was a key issue. At Gillingham in Dorset (Appeal ref: APP/N1215/A/112160839), where the site formed part of panoramic views from the AONB at 7km or more, the Inspector accepted the LPA view that the site formed part of the setting of the AONB, and although the ES only identified a slight/moderate impact on views from the AONB, the Inspector concluded that the development would detract from an the enjoyment of the views and an appreciation of the special qualities of the AONB. As a result he deemed that the proposals would cause unacceptable harm to the setting of the AONB.

At Stinchcombe in Gloucestershire (Appeal ref: APP/C1625/11/2155923), the Inspector also concluded that there would be an unacceptable impact on the setting of the Cotswolds AONB and views from within it. In the Davidstow case, where the views from Rough Tor, within the AONB, are from just 2.5km, the LIVA downplays effects on the Bodmin Moor AONB, which it identifies as major within 4km of the northern edge of the AONB (para 6.7.64), by stating that the farmed and settled rural landscape forms a distant backdrop to the AONB in contrast to the immediate environment of the Bodmin Moor, which remains a wild and tranquil environment (ES; paragraphs 6.7.52 and 6.7.53) and "with the proposed development in place this perception of wilderness and tranquillity would remain materially unchanged" (ES; paragraph 6.7.53). The LVIA concludes that the turbines would be observed "in the context of the broad expansive derelict runway and large scale coniferous plantation, together with the plantations in the middle distance, the landscape characteristics of the site and its immediate environment provide a large scale framework and good environmental fit for the proposed development" (ES; para 6.12.11). However, the independent review of the Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment for the Hendraburnick Wind Park (4 wind turbines) that was carried out by Land Use Consultants for North Cornwall District Council in 2008 concluded in that case, where the Bodmin Moor AONB was approximately 4km away (and Rough Tor 7km), that "the proposal would affect the setting of the AONB by eroding the sense of wildness" by virtue of the scale, prominence, and skyline location of the turbines (Review of the LVIA for Hendraburnick Wind Park, Davidstow; LUC, Feb 2008; paragraph 4.22). Given that the Davidstow proposal is of a significantly larger scale (16 wind turbines) and in much closer proximity to Bodmin Moor than the Hendraburnick one, it is reasonable to conclude that it will have an even greater effect on the setting of the AONB by degrading the sense of wildness. Also the Davidstow LVIA itself identifies that the impact on views from Rough Tor will be major, as they "will undergo a material change" which is partly due to the factors considered in the magnitude of change on the view, which arise from the proximity to the proposed development, the extent of the views that will be affected, the vertical scale of the proposed turbines and the movement of the rotor blades (ES; para 6.7.147). The effect on the views from Brown Willy have similarly been identified as major (para 6.7.153), and from both these viewpoints major/moderate cumulative effects have been identified (ES; paras 6.9.54 and 6.9.60). The effect on the views towards the Bodmin AONB, and the summits of Rough Tor and Brown Willy, have also been identified in the LVIA as major/moderate (para 6.7.156). Planning Balance The nationally important benefits of the proposal are acknowledged by the Trust. However, those benefits have to be weighed against the significant harm the proposal would cause to

the setting of and views from, and to, the Cornwall AONB and thus to its landscape and scenic beauty. The AONB is acknowledged as a nationally important asset, the conservation of which is accorded great weight by the National Planning Policy Framework. The harmful effects would conflict with emerging local plan policies that are in accordance with national guidance in seeking to protect the AONB and in supporting the development of a broad landscape strategy to inform the decision making process on renewable energy, Those effects would also conflict with the Cornwall AONB Management plan (2011-2016). The Trust therefore OBJECTS to the application. The Trust has also highlighted issues in relation to the EIA process that the local planning authority must address before it makes its decision whether to grant planning permission.