Calderdale Energy Park

Calderdale Wind Farm Limited is proposing a 41-turbine windfarm – Calderdale Energy Park – on Walshaw Moor, in Calderdale. 

The moor is part of the South Pennines Site of Special Scientific Interest, Special Protection Area and Special Area of Conservation; designated for its irreplaceable blanket bog habitat and the rare and the fascinating species that call this rich and ancient peatland home.

We are very concerned, closely following and responding to this development. Most of Yorkshire's uplands are protected for nature and their beauty, and any development on deep peat within designated sites sets an alarming precedent. 

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust fully supports the right sustainable energy in the right place to help the country meet its net zero targets. A wind farm at this scale represents a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) proposed on an incredibly sensitive site. 

We have positively engaged with developers for solar farm and offshore wind farm NSIPs, to encourage positive design changes for nature. These wins for nature have included reduced impact on habitats and larger compensation areas for wildlife incorporated into the design, or acquired through funding. We are always keen to engage with developers for renewable energy schemes, as we acknowledge the urgent threat posed by climate change and support the UK’s goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. 

Areas of Walshaw Moor have peat that is 3 metres deep, locking up carbon taken in by plants up to 6,000 years ago. As well as being home to amazing wildlife, the peat mitigates climate change and flood risk and preserves millennia of human and environmental history.  YWT maintains a strong objection to the principle of the proposed development in this site. This is not the right place – there is wind elsewhere. 

An important facet of peatland ecosystems is hydrology, the way that water moves and settles within the peat. The bases of 41 turbines, together with the battery station and the tracks required for installation and maintenance of this development will massively disrupt the hydrology of the site. That disruption occurs not just during installation and decommissioning but the entire time the windfarm is running. This will lower the level of the water within the moor relative to the moor’s surface (the water table), drying out millennia of peat.

The layer of plants growing over the peat’s surface protects it from erosion by the weather. When the peatland dries out, that will kill off the plants on its surface, exposing the peat to erosion by wind and rain. This will lead to the formation of deep channels (known as gullies), and steep faces of bare peat (hags), driving the formation of areas of bare peat that lead into a vicious cycle of further erosion. Furthermore, disruption to the moor’s hydrology may lead to contamination of nearby reservoirs and has the potential to aggravate flooding in the settlements below.

As well as damaging habitat for some of Yorkshire’s iconic wildlife, and destroying the historical record preserved therein, this releases millennia of stored carbon back into the atmosphere, negating the purpose of renewable energy. This isn’t Net Zero, this is Not Zero.