BWEA, the representative body for the UK wind industry reacted with dismay to a report on local community benefits to publish today by the CPRE. The report "Goodwill payments - do they benefit communities?" implies that the wind industry is making improper payments to local communities in order to win planning permissions.

Charles Anglin, BWEA Director of Communications said "This is an outrageous assertion. Wind farm developers are damned if they do, damned if they don't. We recognise that wind farms are a long term presence in local communities and we want to give something back to those communities. That is in the best traditions of local community engagement.'

He added 'Implying as this report does that this is somehow an improper use of funds is deeply inaccurate and ill-informed"

Responding to requests from local communities wind farm developers are increasingly providing community benefits to local neighbourhoods as the traditional Section 106 system of planning gain is unduly restrictive. These payments are made on top of Section 106 payments, and far from reducing the amount of support local communities receive substantially increase it.

The Government is proposing a new local tax on developers, the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), which could actually make things worse. The CIL would be collected by the local council to fund large scale schemes it had previously identified. If community benefits were banned and wind farms forced to pay the CIL it would take funding away from local communities to large scale projects which are often miles away from the wind farm.

BWEA wants the Section 106 system to be reformed to allow community benefits to be part of the formal planning system, instead of being forced to pay CIL.

Anglin said "Why shouldn't local communities be able to ask wind farms to fund the things that they need locally, such as, OAP lunch clubs or a children's playground?" He added "We want to be part of the community and respond to its needs and concerns. What is wrong with that?"