Our response to the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee’s consideration of Petition PE1885

Energy Saving Trust was asked by the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee to provide our views to help in their consideration of Petition PE1885: Make offering Community Shared Ownership mandatory for all windfarm development planning proposals.

Our response to the Committee makes the following five recommendations:

1. Local Energy Scotland continues to monitor and report to Scottish Government annually on the level of Community Shared Ownership (CSO) opportunities in newly consented projects.
2. Local Energy Scotland monitors and reports to Scottish Government annually on the level of CSO opportunities being realised.
3. The Scottish Government should establish an online register of CSO opportunities and completions, similar to the existing CBF register.
4. The Scottish Government should reinforce the importance of adherence to the industry agreed GPP to ensure that CSO offers are likely to work. This could be done via refreshes to the Scottish Energy Strategy and any other appropriate interim policy statements, for example the outcome of the current onshore wind policy statement consultation mentioned above.
5. The Scottish Government should determine whether there are ways and means other than through the planning system that CSO could be mandated in future if required.