Fury at Labour plot to blight UK seaside towns with £8.9bn wind farms | UK | News


The Crown Estate and the Labour Government plan to build a number of wind farms near some of Britain’s most popular seaside towns.

The expansion will see turbines built near holiday hotspots in Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly, and South Wales.

The coasts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire are also being eyed up by the Crown Estate and Government for wind farms.

But fishermen in these areas have warned that the wind warms will negatively impact their industry.

Mike Cohen, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, told The Telegraph: “Wind farms are challenging neighbours for the fishermen already working in the areas of the sea that the Crown Estate plans to lease out for industrialisation.

“Most types of fishing cannot take place within wind farms. Longer days at sea, higher fuel costs, and smaller catches are the result.

“There has been almost no scientific investigation of the ecological impacts of this type of marine construction, particularly on the staggering scale that has been proposed.”

The development of renewable energy infrastructure comes amid a partnership between the Crown Estate and GB Energy, the new state organisation set up by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.

Approximately 15 percent of British electricity came from offshore wind turbines in 2023.

The 2,800 offshore wind turbines have a capacity of 15 gigawatts, but the new farms could boost this by 11 gigawatts.

The Crown Estate has suggested it could take the capacity to as much as 140 gigawatts by 2050.

The Government is providing GB Energy with £8.3billion of funding and aims to attract £60billion of private investment for the project.

Fintan Slye, director of the National Grid’s Electricity Systems Operator, said: “This is another step in ensuring that we can collectively accelerate deployment of offshore renewables.”

Juergen Maier, chair of Great British Energy, said: “This report marks an exciting step towards unlocking the next 20 to 30 GW of offshore wind pipeline – enough power for the equivalent of almost 20m homes.”

The Crown Estate’s Future of Offshore Wind report said: “Much of the new offshore wind capacity is expected to be in areas of the Celtic Sea, which lies off the coasts of South Wales and South West England and North East England.

“A number of smaller projects are also likely off the coasts of North Wales, North West England, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.”

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