This Toolkit is designed to help to make meaningful community benefits more routine and systematic in UK wind energy projects. It sits alongside activities to support improved public engagement in the wind farm planning process (see ‘The protocol for public engagement with proposed wind energy developments in England: a report for the Renewables Advisory Board and DTI’ (URN 06/1819) and ‘The protocol for public engagement with proposed wind energy developments in Wales: a report for the Renewables Advisory Board and DTI’ (URN 06/1820) at www.decc.gov.uk) and to identify specific approaches to enabling local ownership which fit with typical financing structures for commercial wind farm developments (see ‘Bankable models which enable local community wind farm ownership: a report for the Renewables Advisory Board and DTI’ (URN 06/1816) at www.decc.gov.uk).
The Toolkit starts from the premise that there are no ‘entitlements’ – either to develop a wind farm in a particular location or to gain financially from someone else doing so ‘on our doorstep’. It simply provides information on the options for taking action to negotiate and potentially realise meaningful benefits for local communities.
This toolkit is designed to help wind energy developers, local authorities and local communities understand better:
• the range of ways in which ‘host communities’ can benefit from wind energy developments
• the possible justifications for ensuring greater local benefits
• the factors which may influence the nature and scale of benefits available to host communities
• the options for managing the delivery of benefits locally
• the role each of them can potentially play in securing local benefits.
