THIS WAS THE BONES OF MY 4th SUBMISSION TO COUNCIL’S STRATEGIC FINANCE COMMITTEE IN 2021
This series of posts is aimed at transforming the rates base and income of Newry Mourne and Down Council in a manner that could provide up to 50% of the revenue we currently receive from our hard-pressed business and household ratepayers. I provide examples in each post from other Councils in Ireland, England, Scotland or Wales who have already implemented these ideas. I am making a post each day during COP28 to give a clear lead on what needs to be done.
‘New Circular Economy’ solutions deliver solutions to Council finances, should we choose to belatedly embrace them. (note also called New Electrified Economy in the USA). In particular, ideas associated with the energy transition are particularly lucrative for Councils.
RATES FROM RENEWABLES – if you don’t have a plan you are not in the race
I have done FoI’s to the Land and Property Service database in Belfast showing where our council stands to rates from renewables.
Rates from renewable energy as a whole in Northern Ireland will grow to between £100 Million and £200 million over the next decade. That is potentially more than £10 million annually for each Council if they are prepared. Fermanagh Council is already well past 50% of this figure. By way of context, our annual rates support grant is only ~£8 million pa.
Rates from renewables are already 3 times those for fossil fuels despite only being 14% of overall energy. Renewable projects deliver far more rates as they are locally based and replace imported fuel with projects on the ground with local staff. Those Councils who depend on rates income from fossil fuels are in trouble like Mid and East Antrim.
These 2022 Republic figures show where our rates are likely to go in the next few years. Since writing this, I discovered several Southern Councils with 30%+ of their rates from renewables
Within the context of UK Government policy of moving current electricity generation towards 100% renewables, we must add the energy transition of firstly transport to electric and increasingly heat so almost all energy will be electric, provided by renewables, and paying rates locally. This will generate a tenfold increase in rates from energy as renewables have to be sited locally, unlike fossil fuels.
PROBLEMS WITH GRID CAPACITY IN OUR AREA
As you can see from this diagram, we have a wholly inadequate grid network in our area. NIE Networks has responded to planning decisions by Councils are doing in Antrim, Derry and Tyrone by upgrading their grid to the tune of 90 million pounds. Our Council’s lack of enthusiasm for the New Circular Economy or chasing NIE for a decent service locally has condemned our Council to be a backwater where factories from Ardglass to Kilkeel must run diesel engines to provide their own power and investors in the New Circular Economy will look elsewhere to find a Council interested and capable of receiving New Green Economy investments. In November 2023 I finally got our Council to tackle NIE networks and the Grid regulator on this issue see Long-awaited Council Management Response to calamitous grid situation in South Down
PROPOSED TARGETS FOR NEWRY MOURNE AND DOWN MANAGEMENT
As you can see above, Irish Councils with wind resources like ours get up to 20% of their rates from wind farms* . We get nothing.
This would suggest to me that we as Councillors could reasonably set 3 policy targets our Chief Executive.
- Firstly, a target of 10% of rates to be gleaned from wind farms alone by 2030. A short term target should also be set with an easy to achieve figure of £1,500,000 by 2022. I doubt if we would need to explain to the Chief Executive that this target would have ramifications for the Development Plan that she would need to see were put in place.
- Secondly, we will need urgent work getting NIE Networks to bring our local distribution and transmission capacity to levels found in Derry, Tyrone and Antrim. At the moment we actually don’t have any transmission network in our Council area South of a line North of Newry City across to Ballynahinch. This situation is not just about local factories having to use diesel generators to get electricity, but about our entire Council area being prevented from participating in the New Circular Economy – often called the ‘New Electrified Economy’ which will be the key driver of good jobs in the future. see link to Long-awaited Council Management Response to calamitous grid situation in South Down
- Finally, we must write tackling ‘Climate Change Emergency’ into our planning policy. At the moment, our ‘Climate Change Emergency’ policy is wholly rhetorical. As our Chief Planner Anthony McKay has explained to us when considering the Hilltown Windfarm, if Climate Change Emergency is not written into planning policy, it cannot be taken into account. No wind farm will get a positive recommendation in our area for as long as our planning policy does not reflect climate change emergency as well as all the usual considerations.
If we set clear targets for our Chief Executive she can have her team drive the necessary change in our Development Planning work. NIE Networks will have to engage with our Council area moving forward and give us the same upgrade that other Councils have already received with their networks.
NOTE; if Council was to develop its own wind farm, the income would be 5 times higher that the rates for that wind farm. Thus 2 Council-owned wind farms would give us the income from rates of 10 privately owned wind farms.
‘*’ In more recent FoI’s I have discovered several Councils in the South with more that 30% of their rates from renewables