In early September 2023, reports suggested that Rishi Sunak’s government was preparing to relax planning rules that had all but stopped new onshore wind farms in England since 2015. On 5 September, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove confirmed the change in a written statement to Parliament and published an updated National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) the same day.
Under the 2015 rules, an onshore wind farm in England could only be approved on a site identified as suitable in a local plan, and only if it had the backing of the affected community. Few councils had identified such sites, so very few projects came forward. The September 2023 changes let suitable sites be identified in more ways than through the local plan, including through local and neighbourhood development orders. They also gave councils more flexibility to judge whether local concerns had been addressed.
The government acted under pressure from its own backbenches. Former COP26 president Sir Alok Sharma had tabled an amendment to the Energy Bill to remove the restriction, which had attracted support from other Conservative MPs and from the opposition. After the statement, the amendment was not put to a vote. Planning lawyers and the wind industry described the change as a small step, because the core community-support test stayed in place.
What happened next
July 2024: Days after the general election, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the end of what the new Labour government called the de facto ban. A policy statement published on 8 July removed the two NPPF footnotes behind the restriction, with immediate effect. Onshore wind would now be judged on the same basis as other energy projects. The government said it aimed to double onshore wind capacity by 2030.
December 2024: A revised NPPF carried these changes into the framework. The Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, published the same month, set a range of 27–29 GW of onshore wind across Great Britain by 2030.
June 2025: After approval by both Houses of Parliament, the government made an order bringing onshore wind farms in England larger than 100 MW back into the regime for nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs). This means ministers, not councils, decide on the largest schemes. The same order raised the NSIP threshold for solar farms from 50 MW to 100 MW. It came into force on 31 December 2025. Onshore wind in Wales remains a matter for Welsh decision-makers.
July 2025: The government published an Onshore Wind Strategy, drawn up with an industry taskforce. It sets out more than 40 actions on planning, community engagement, aviation and defence radar, grid connections and supply chains. A new Onshore Wind Council oversees delivery.
February 2026: In the onshore part of the seventh Contracts for Difference round (AR7a), 28 onshore wind projects totalling about 1.3 GW won contracts at £72.24/MWh in 2024 prices. Most were in Scotland, with only two in England. This suggests that England’s project pipeline is still at an early stage.
June 2026: The Climate Change Committee reported that UK onshore wind capacity stood at 16.4 GW at the end of 2025, with only 0.3 GW added during the year. It estimated that 2.1–2.5 GW a year would be needed to reach the 2030 range.
Why it matters for UK energy
Onshore wind is among the cheapest sources of new electricity in Britain, but for most of a decade England added very little of it. The main planning barriers in England have now been removed. The remaining constraints are grid connections, defence radar issues and building enough projects quickly to meet the 2030 target. More background on the technology is in our guide to harnessing the power of the wind.