Appendix 1
EVIDENCE REQUESTED
BY THE
COMMITTEE
Q237 Mr Cawsey:
Can you think from your experiences of any examples
where the deployment of renewable electricity-generation technologies
have had a positive social and environmental impact on the local
area?
Mr McCullough: Virtually every scheme we do.
Q238 Mr Cawsey:
In which way?
Mr McCullough: What we always do from a public
perspective is educate them about what the benefits of a wind
farm would bring to the national picture. We do that in our very
early stages in the various public meetings that we hold. In all
cases—and you will find that this is common practice throughout
the whole sector—we have an element of the money to be raised
from that commercial scheme returned to the community via various
bodies, so everything from assisting in schools and colleges locally
in education programmes, through to refurbishment of village halls,
or the sponsoring of a lifeboat with new Land Rovers and the like.
All of that is wrapped into the overall community package and
that is part of the business, but perhaps the most commercially
important issue is that it does create real jobs, and it creates
jobs now. Very often in very rural areas the difference of 10
or 20 jobs makes a huge difference to the local economy, for people
in regular employment, in some of the remoter parts of Scotland
and Wales in particular. In the Highlands and Islands in Scotland
for instance bringing in a 90 megawatt wind farm project will
generate of the order of 20 to 30 jobs. It does not sound a lot
in one regard but it is a huge benefit. In all our cases where
we survey before and after, the acceptance and understanding of
what it brings to the community is always elevated. We can demonstrate
some evidence if the panel is interested in seeing that from our
projects.
Q239 Chairman: I think we would very
much appreciate having a written submission there just to indicate
that and particularly again in terms of tidal where you are doing
major pieces of engineering in fairly remote areas with different
technologies, if there is anything you could let the Committee
have to see where there has been real environmental and social
benefit, that would be useful for us to include in our Report.
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