Economic impacts of wind farms on Scottish tourism: report

Part 1 Introduction and Literature Review

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

Wind farms require wind. The map of UK wind speed distribution is almost identical to a topographic map of the country with a superimposed rim of higher speeds around sections of the coast. These areas often have little economic land use and remain beautiful wilderness areas of semi-natural land which are highly valued by tourists. It is no coincidence that our Designated Areas - National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and many Sites of Special Scientific Interest etc are almost all within these pre-industrial landscape remnants. To many wind farms are unwelcome intrusions into Scotland's scenery.

The Scottish Government is mindful of its need to balance sustainable economic growth with environmental responsibilities, and ministers have, with broad support, made substantial commitments to carbon dioxide reduction and thus to generation without hydrocarbons. Despite its small size, if it were accounted as a separate country Scotland would be 13th in the world league for wind energy capacity, with just over a Gigawatt of capacity ⁵. The United Kingdom has a large proportion of Europe's wind resource, and a large share of that is located in Scotland.

Per head of population Scotland has almost 200 W per head of population, against a world average of 12 W. On a per capita basis it would rank fourth in the world after Denmark, Spain and Germany.

Figure 1-1 Watts/ Installed Capacity

Scotland already has half of Britain's installed wind capacity, as well as more than half of its most beautiful scenery. The basic problem of location in a scenic area is exacerbated because efficient energy production and transmission requires very large turbines, spaced across a relatively concentrated location. The economic ideal for the wind-energy producer is a development involving a large number of turbines sited on exposed ground. In effect some large wind farm developments may industrialise large areas of wilderness or semi wilderness.

Tourists want scenery and tranquillity, and the recreational opportunities it offers. Uniformly, every nationality of visitor to Scotland sampled in the latest Tourism Attitudes Survey cites 'scenery' and 'natural environment' as the main attractions. In areas that by definition are unsuited for producing goods, and where there is scant local market for services, tourist spending generates income for the fragile communities that can just subsist. Tourism revenue underpins not just the people and businesses that provide bed and board, but many other local services. So if wind farms deter significant numbers of tourists, they threaten not just the local tourism industry but one element in the economic sustainability of the local community. On the other hand community based energy production can also play a role in sustaining remote or island communities.

The discussion on any particular wind farm proposal is now almost always an adversarial debate, and the policy area of wind farms in Scotland has become polarised and founded on competing myths (of which some are, and some are not, founded in reality).

Fundamentally this research seeks to provide knowledge of:

• The potential number that would be affected
• The reactions of those affected to these schemes
• The economic impact of those reactions

Examining the three questions above is a crucial step in:

• Replacing myth with evidence
• Determining if there is a trade-off, for local communities and for Scotland as a whole, between energy and environmental benefits and tourism damage
• Identifying when there should be a general presumption for or against a development.

More generally the objective of this research is to:

• Assist in the development of policy, particularly in those areas where tourism is an important part of the local economy
• Provide practical guidance on assessing the economic impact of wind farm developments and related infrastructure on tourism
• Identify how this assessment can be taken into account when considering sites for new developments

1.2 Research objectives

The original tender identified five objectives:

• Which parts of Scotland are most reliant on their landscape for tourism purposes? Which areas should be chosen as possible case studies?
• What are the principal characteristics of a wind farm development?
• What do the experiences of other countries tell us?
• What are the likely economic impacts of wind farms on tourism, across the range of scenarios/case studies?
• How can the results be generalised for use: in the planning system; and to inform tourism policy; and with what level of confidence?

Each of these objectives was clearly to be framed in the context of Scotland and the decisions that have to be made to create the growing sustainable economy desired. In addition to the objectives the tender document suggested three key challenges:

• Determining appropriate geographical areas and selecting case studies
• Valuing the economic significance of that part of tourism attributable to the visual surroundings - and how it would be affected by wind farm development. The economic effects need to be identified and measured at the local, Scottish and UK levels; as well as some measure and discussion of the way in which impacts at the margin may change as the number of wind farms grows.
• Generalising the results for use in the planning system.

Our proposal suggested a three level approach with increasing focus on specific wind farms and their impact. In discussion with the Steering Group and in the light of increasing knowledge as the research progressed, this approach has evolved. What has become apparent is that the key question to be answered is the size of any negative impact, which the literature review suggests might, on the one hand, be as little as zero (or even just possibly positive) or, on the other, as much as 30% of the tourist expenditure in an area. In the context of planning it is the size of the impact that must be central to the discussion. The research has consequently adopted a very quantitative approach even when the data supporting it may be questioned. We collect from our surveys information on activities and perceptions but the focus of our work is always the associated numbers. It should be understood that this approach is uncommon in Tourism research and, as far as we can tell, unique in tourism/wind farm research.

1.3 Structure of report

The report is presented in 3 parts:

• Introduction and Review;
• Methodology;
• Results.

Within Part 1, this first chapter outlines the research objectives and philosophy and discusses those affected and the case study areas. Chapter 2 then discusses the theory underlying Economic Impact Analysis and outlines the methods used to identify expenditure change and the resultant changes in employment and income. Chapter 3 then reviews the quite extensive literature, both domestic and international, on the impact of wind farms.

The methodology utilises four discrete steps:

• A survey of tourists to identify likely reactions to wind farm developments
• A GIS study to identify how many tourists will be exposed to wind farm developments
• An Internet survey of tourists in general to gauge the loss of scenic value from a wind farm development
• An economic modelling exercise that combines intentions, loss of value and tourist exposure with a study of the importance of tourism in each area in order to identify changes in tourist expenditure and consequently changes in employment and income.

Each of these stages may be seen as important pieces of research providing more information than is required for the impact analysis. Consequently in part 2chaps 4, 5, 6 and 7 the methods used and the results from each are discussed in some depth.

Part 3Chaps 8, 9, 10, 11 & 12 are concerned with the findings for each case study area and for Scotland as a whole and each Chapter covers the following:

• The Local Economy and the importance of Tourism
• Wind farms: Current and Applications
• The Viewshed Analysis
• Tourist Travel in the Area and Numbers Affected
• Accommodation in the Area and Percentage Affected
• Estimated Percentage Change in Expenditures
• Economic Impact

Chap 13 draws together the findings and discusses the implications of those findings on planning policy in Scotland. There are two specific issues. Firstly it may be argued that tourism issues are so important in our local economies that they should be explicitly covered by planning policies and that an official tourist body ought to be a statutory consultee on planning applications. This is discussed further in Chap 13.

The second issue discussed is the size or agglomeration of developments and the evidence gained in the surveys hopefully provides guidance on this issue.

1.4 Defining the tourist

A major problem with tourism research is defining the tourist. VisitScotland defines a tourist as a non-resident who spends one or more nights in Scotland. This is then subdivided into four groups:

• Holidays
• Business
• Visits Friends and Relatives
• Other

The 2005 totals are shown in Table 1-1.

Table 1-1 Value and Volume of Scottish Tourism (2005)

	Trips		Nights		Expenditure
	(m)	(%)	(m)	(%)	(£m)	(%)
UK Tourists 2005
Holidays	9.45	63	37.7	70	2023	67
Business	2.53	17	7.3	14	681	23
Visits to Friends & Relatives	2.18	15	6.8	13	240	8
Other	0.71	5	1.8	3	62	2
Total	14.87	100	53.6	100	3,006	100
Overseas Tourists 2005
Holidays	1.10	46	9.30	38	584	48
Business	0.40	17	2.80	12	217	18
Visits To Friends & Relatives	0.75	31	7.60	31	273	23
Other	0.14	6	4.63	19	133	11
Total	2.39	100	24.33	100	1,208	100

Significantly this definition does not cover day trippers who constitute an extremely important market for visitor attractions.

The national travel survey defines some 21 purposes as shown in Table 1-2.

Table 1-2 Long Distance (>50 miles) Journey Purpose

		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Commuting	7749	12.3	12.3	12.3
	Business	10173	16.1	16.1	28.4
	Other work	132	.2	.2	28.7
	Education	514	.8	.8	29.5
	Food shopping	154	.2	.2	29.7
	Non food shopping	1727	2.7	2.7	32.5
	Personal business medical	222	.4	.4	32.8
	Personal business eat/drink	8	.0	.0	32.8
	Personal business other	2897	4.6	4.6	37.4
	Visit friends at private home	14799	23.5	23.5	60.9
	Eat/drink with friends	354	.6	.6	61.5
	Other social	2526	4.0	4.0	65.5
	Entertain/ public activity	3127	5.0	5.0	70.4
	Sport: participate	797	1.3	1.3	71.7
	Holiday: base	9840	15.6	15.6	87.3
	Day trip	4976	7.9	7.9	95.2
	Just walk	4	.0	.0	95.2
	Other non-escort	8	.0	.0	95.2
	Escort commuting	88	.1	.1	95.4
	Escort business & other work	88	.1	.1	95.5
	Escort education	396	.6	.6	96.1
	Escort shopping/pers. business	523	.8	.8	97.0
	Escort home (not own) & other escort	1911	3.0	3.0	100.0
	Total	63013	100.0	100.0

Day Trips typically are less than 50 miles to the local park, castle, museum or forest. In practice local visitors on day trips tend to dominate visitor attractions. Even if limited to journeys over 50 miles it is clear that Day Trips are an important element in the Tourism sector.

For the purpose of assessing the impact we have assumed that Business Tourism and short journey day trips will be unaffected by wind farm developments whilst VFR and Long Journey Day Trips will be affected.

VFR covers tourists with a range of purposes from offspring returning to the family home to long lost aunties looking for a cheap holiday in Scotland. It is not possible from available statistics to distinguish reasons for the visit and consequently all have been assumed to be holidaymakers and to have similar reactions to "ordinary" holidaymakers.

Similarly those visiting for reasons of sporting activity range from the totally unaffected (visit to Celtic Park) to the most affected such as long distance walkers. Again it is impossible to identify more precisely and sporting "tourists" are assumed to have the same response as normal tourists.

1.5 The selected case study areas

The selection of case study areas was based on the following criteria:

• Importance of Tourism in the area
• Significant number of actual or proposed developments
• Range of sceneries and characteristics
• Data availability
• Ability to identify appropriate intercept survey sites

We were also asked to avoid very controversial areas currently at the Inquiry or Appeal stage. After some debate the following areas were agreed:

• Perth, Kinross and Stirling
• Caithness and Sutherland
• Dumfries and Galloway
• The Scottish Borders

Smaller areas were considered but the absence of economic data precluded their use. The areas cover North, Central and Southern Scotland as shown in Figure 1-2

Figure 1-2 Case Study Areas

Although not dissimilar in physical area and in the importance of tourism, there are substantial differences in Tourism expenditure. For comparative purposes these are shown along with the five biggest tourist economies in Table 1-3

Table 1-3 Tourist Expenditure in the Case Study Areas

Area	Expenditure £M	Percent of Scotland
Edinburgh	£1,064	14.45%
Highland (inc C&S)	£747	10.15%
Glasgow City	£703	9.55%
Argyll & Bute	£413	5.61%
Fife	£361	4.90%
Perth, Kinross and Stirling	£657	8.93%
Dumfries & Galloway	£359	4.88%
Scottish Borders	£175	2.38%
Caithness and Sutherland	£35	0.48%

The corresponding identified farms for use in the intercept study were:

• Braes of Doune (for Perth, Kinross and Stirling)
• Causeymire (for Caithness and Sutherland)
• Dun Law (for The Scottish Borders)
• Dalswinton (under construction in Dumfries and Galloway)

Initially we had intended to focus on a limited number of developments and model the visibility and physical impact in relation to such factors as area and height. However it became increasingly obvious that each development was unique and a general model would be hopelessly inaccurate. It was decided therefore to model all the developments in the area and create, for the first time, a combined ZVI. The number and characteristics of the developments in each area are discussed in Part 3 of this report.