Windfalls for whom? The evolving notion of 'community' in community benefit provisions from wind farms

Bristow, Gillian Irene ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5714-8247, Cowell, Richard John Westley ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1639-8004 and Munday, Maxim C. R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9067-2481 2012. Windfalls for whom? The evolving notion of 'community' in community benefit provisions from wind farms. Geoforum 43 (6) , pp. 1108-1120. 10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.06.015

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Abstract

This paper investigates the increasing provision of ‘community benefits’ – i.e. financial or material benefits to communities affected by wind energy development – with a focus on on-shore wind projects in Wales. The paper argues that as community benefits are becoming more significant in scale, so pressures are mounting on what have hitherto been largely ad hoc arrangements for their disbursement. The paper finds that previously dominant definitions of communities as places directly affected by and within close proximity to wind farm development, are being challenged by the tendency to define ‘affected’ communities as broader entities characterised by more indirect and widely dispersed claims to benefit entitlement. This redefinition of the recipient community is causing conflict, much of it focused on debates about how community benefits should be governed. Evidence suggests that any re-scaling of relations around community benefits – from local compensation towards wider development goals – may be more consensually achieved in communities with previous experience in handling these funds, and where growing income streams allow multiple constituencies to be satisfied.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics) Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Community benefit; Wind farms; Community governance
Additional Information:	Themed issue: Spatialities of Ageing
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0016-7185
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2022 10:43
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/45630

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