Community engagement and renewables

Sheepdrove Organic Farm brought together the community, landscape and business interests in the local area to participate in the best practice case study to explore the potential for wind power installations at the farm.

Our approach to community engagement in the case study builds upon the approach set out in the South West Public Engagement Protocol and Guidance for Wind Energy.

This protocol is designed to be adopted by local authorities and developers who, under the new planning system, need to engage the public at the very earliest stage of the processes that would lead eventually to the submission of a planning application.

Sheepdrove’s Renewable Energy case study was designed to replicate those early stages of the engagement process and covered the topics outlined in the Protocol for the site identification and pre-application phases.

Since there were no actual proposals, the case study was an academic exercise.

Bringing things together

Sheepdrove Organic Farm hired independent consultants LDA Design, who are experts in landscape character issues, protection, policy, and community and development projects. We scheduled two stakeholder workshops, and a trip to give people the chance to visit existing local wind turbines.

To ensure the meetings went well and were not biased, LDA brought in a professional facilitator, Alison Millward, who is very experienced in the consultation process. To provide energy expertise LDA teamed up with Future Energy Solutions (FES), a local consultancy firm.

Our working community are very important – the people who work here at the farm. So we started our Community Engagement with an informal meeting for staff, (some of whom live here, and many live in Lambourn) gave everyone a background to our ideas so far, and asked everyone for their questions, concerns and opinions. We also invited them to the stakeholder workshops.

For a wider community engagement we contacted all the local stakeholders on the North Wessex Downs AONB’s Council of Partners, including local authority Planning Policy officers, local councillors, parishes, and countryside groups like the Ramblers Association.

We contacted nearby farmers and our neighbours living in the Sheepdrove area between the farm and the village. To add to this we also contacted organisations such as CPRE, TVEnergy, the local Wildlife Trust, and nearby AONBs, the Chilterns and the Cotswolds. Over 100 stakeholders were invited in total.

Taking things forward

We will continue to engage with the community about Renewable Energy and we will keep updating these energy pages to inform people about what we are doing. As and when we devise planning proposals, we will continue the dialogue process each step of the way. Do let us know your ideas on energy...