Wednesday, 30 April 2025
Report: Walshaw Windfarm community assembly Autumn 2024
Just as Calderdale Wind Farm Limited has just unveiled its revised proposal - now rebranded as The Calderdale Energy Park - the HebWeb has been sent this report which reviews the two Walshaw Windfarm Community Assemblies that took place in Todmorden and Hebden Bridge last Autumn.
A Community Assembly is a way for people, with a range of views, in a community to come together, talk things out, and make decisions as a group. It gives everyone a chance to be part of the process of figuring out what really matters locally. The idea is to learn from each other and have open conversations.
Summary
This report shares the experience and learnings of a small group of environmental campaigners with differing views, who organised a successful community assembly in November 2024 to consider the controversial large Walshaw wind farm (WWF) proposal near Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.
Inspired by the community assembly work of Extinction Rebellion, the 5 hour duration event featured a range of neutral, expert speakers. Facilitators in small groups encouraged the 70+ participants to listen and engage with the range of issues and different perspectives.
Participant feedback on the events was largely very positive with many people sharing that their perspectives had widened and in some cases views had shifted. However many felt the event had heightened their awareness of the complexity of the issues and a hunger to know more.
The organisers concluded that this type of event format could be applicable with other polarised environmental or social issues, for example contentious local transport proposals. It could also have a more formal role in the pre application phase of the Walshaw wind farm proposal under the National Significant Infrastructure Planning (NSIP) regime.
Context
Worldwide Renewable Energy Global Ltd published proposals in 2023 to build up to 65 turbines (up to 302 MW installed capacity) on Walshaw Moor above Hebden Bridge (HB) in Calderdale. The site is peat moorland with a number of landscape protection designations. An application for a Development Consent Order (DCO) via Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) planning regime is expected in 2025/6, after expected changes to English planning law.
The proposal has created significant local controversy, active opposition groups have formed and have already organised high profile events against it. It has also to an extent polarised local environmentalists both 'for' and 'against'. As well as the landscape designations there is significant concern about flooding, the visual impact and the Saudi financial backing of the project.
The organising group came together in spring 2024 inspired by the community assembly work of Extinction Rebellion (XR) and because of a jointly held desire to broaden the parameters of the local debate and obtain neutral, factual information. There was agreement that the urgent need to address the climate emergency was largely absent from local discourse but also that the issue is complex because of potential damage to the carbon sequestration properties of the peat and the protected designation of the proposed site. Members of the organising group had experience of community assemblies and thought they could be useful.
What we did
The idea for a community assembly was floated on a couple of local environmental WhatsApp groups hosted by XRCalderdale (XRC) and Calderdale Green New Deal (CGND) - one of the other main local climate and nature campaigning groups, and a new WhatsApp group was set up. Initial face to face meetings were held in the spring / early summer of 2024 where everyone was encouraged to share their views of the WWF proposal. From the start - a range of views about the WWF proposal were represented in this group. It took a few meetings for the group to build trust and come to a consensus that a community assembly was the way forward. We then coalesced into a small organising committee who then met mostly weekly, online up to the November event.
Our Objectives:
We coalesced around the following broad objectives:
- Obtain and share expert neutral information about different aspects of the development
- Create an environment to facilitate conversations on a contentious issue but NOT to come to a joint view or position
- Test the community assembly concept around a 'real world' development, because going forward we will face many hard 'climate vs nature / lifestyle' choices in a climate & nature emergency
The core organising committee agreed the basic format of: Input from expert speakers on the key topics followed by carefully facilitated discussions in small groups, and that due to strong local feeling it made sense to test our plan with a smaller invited audience first, before running a public event. We set a 11-3pm schedule including a shared hour long lunch to encourage interaction.
We decided the key topics to be covered by expert speakers should be:
- Climate change and energy – ie place of windfarms in our efforts to mitigate the climate emergency – this included the carbon implications of damage to peat moorland
- The developer – to cover their plans and process, after initial agreement to attend - they pulled out, a short handout derived from their website was used instead
- Planning – an overview of the land use planning process and how the development would be considered, assessed and decided
- Peat – an introduction to the physiology and hydrology of peat including potential flood implications for the local area
- Bio-Diversity – the flora and fauna of the moor and likely impacts on them from the development
- Landscape and heritage – this was a wider topic area around the visual, cultural and heritage aspects of the development's impacts which we found hard to pin down precisely
We reached agreement on these briefs and also which expert speakers should be invited, we decided the 2 event dates (28/9/24 & 17/11/24) and invited the speakers to both at the outset. (slots were limited to 7 mins for the first event and 12mins for the 2nd). Due to non-availability, 3 & 6 did not have speakers for the 2nd event, 3 was covered by a facilitator with some planning knowledge leading a discussion group.
The 3 speakers at the November 17 event were:
- Jay Rutovitz, Research Director (Energy), Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney. (topic 1)
- Alex Jones, Principal Hydrogeologist at JBA Consulting (topic 4)
- Andy Mather, Senior Ecologist, mammal recorder for Halifax Scientific Society and founder of Calderdale Otter Project (topic 5)
It soon became clear that the quality of facilitation of the events was critical. We invited people with significant experience and skills in community facilitation (although not professionals) and co-designed the format with them, including the vitally important role of the tone and behaviour code ('ground rules') for participants at the start of the event. The discussion groups were also each allocated a facilitator from our wider organising group to ensure the event format was followed through. We worked hard to construct an approach that would help people to feel that they were comfortable, welcome and that their views and concerns were heard and respected. This was reflected in every part of the format including the facilitation, the seating, the timings and the lunch arrangements. We wanted people to be receptive to challenge and not to respond with confrontation, so the details and the tone of the event were important.
Venues were chosen for their centrality, accessibility by public transport, adequate size and facilities for breakout groups and a shared lunch. The first one in Todmorden and second in Hebden Bridge (4.5 miles apart, HB being closer to the WWF site), this meant we could apply for community grants from 2 town councils, although, in the end, we didn't do this. Funding was provided by Friends of the Earth (FoE) via an application by CGND to the FoE Local Action Group Fund, XRC, CGND and via voluntary participant donation.
Promotion for the first event was by invite only to local community, campaign and environmental groups via personal invite on whats app groups and by e-mail. For the second, we used Action Network online booking platform via a QR code / booking link via a poster, facebook promotion to selected groups, a press release, community websites and personal invite.
How it went
Around 40 people attended the 28/9 invite-only event and 70 the public 17/11 event.
Both ran smoothly, to time with no significant difficulties or disruption, despite strong and polarized local feelings about the issue. The participants, with very few exceptions, respected the ground rules and ethos of the events and engaged positively.
We changed the format of the 2nd event in response to feedback on the 1st, the main change was more time for fewer speakers and an opportunity to ask them questions in a facilitated small group.
We encouraged participants to fill out a feedback form at both events which the core organizing committee considered at debrief meetings shortly after the events.
The feedback from organisers and participants on both events was mostly very positive. A separate 3 page summary of the feedback is available but key points from the 2nd event were:
- Expectations were largely met, facilitators and speakers received very positive feedback and people enjoyed the informal food share
- The event felt less polarised than some expected, and some reported changing their views in light of learning 'new' information
- The small group work highlighted agreement on a broad range of issues including: the urgent need for onshore wind, the need for more information and trust in the process but also mistrust in the developer, landowner and regulation
- Small groups also highlighted disagreement on the value of the moorland and wildlife, the urgency of carbon reduction and importance of site ownership
- Questions were raised about how the impact of the development can be managed through its design and how this could be controlled
- It was generally felt that the conversations should continue, the speakers info should be shared more widely to affected communities including young people who were absent from the events
Learnings
What worked:
- The format: ground rules > expert input > facilitated small group discussions
- Learning as we went along - having an invite only first event was part of this
- Having a small organising group of people able to commit regular time for a few months
- Having a small 'organising committee' only WhatsApp group as well as a larger one
- Having facilitators in all the small breakout groups
- Ensuring we had experienced main facilitators who spelt out the 'rules of engagement'
- 'Jacobs join' shared lunch format to cut costs and encourage participant interaction
- Inviting 'pay as you feel' donation to help with costs - this raised approx £90
- Core team considered most 'risks' around running the event
- The format works! A large group of people with a mix of strong views about the issue accepted and worked within 'rules of engagement' that were laid down at the start of the event
Things that might need changing:
- Ensure we can demonstrate that we have considered potential risks inherent in running an event about a contentious issue. We missed out on funding from one local council because they considered we were ill-prepared for the potential disruption from challenging participants
- Have vols on the door to brief and steer latecomers
- Be clear in the promotion that it's not a 'drop in' and full participation is required 11-3pm
How this could be used in future:
- For the WWF: NSIP process requires statutory consultation at the 'pre application' stage, a community assembly format could be used as a precursor to pulling together a community response to the WWF proposal, this could aim to lay down parameters on what the 'best' WWF could look like - ie turbines sited to avoid deep peat and safeguards around impacts on nature and flooding.
- For other 'contentious' environmental and community issues, for example: transport developments like cycle lanes and low traffic neighbourhoods, however these are arguably even more contentious therefore a risk assessment will be needed and an agreed plan to deal with particularly disruptive individuals
If you want to know more
Contact: Ali Bath: alibath@btinternet.com
Richard Dyer: dickdyer@yahoo.co.uk
Useful links:
- Calderdale wind (developer): Calderdale Wind Farm - Calderdale Wind Farm
- Save snd Restore Walshaw Moor
- XR Community assembly manual: CommunityAssemblyManual.pdf - Google Drive
- FoE NSIP Briefing: NSIP Guide for Campaigners_final_1.pdf
Previously on the HebWeb
HebWeb News: Walshaw Windfarm Community Assembly (Nov 2024)