Parish councillors have been told that – despite Walshaw Moor being ruled out for wind turbines in the Calderdale Local Plan – the highly protected conservation area has been chosen by the shell company Calderdale Windfarm Ltd as the site of the biggest on-shore wind farm in England to date, because it has high wind speeds and is owned by a single landowner. Plus it can be linked into the National Grid.
On 11th December 2023 the hilltop parish councils, along with Calder Ward Councillor Sarah Courtney and the Calderdale Council Cabinet portfolio holder for Climate Action, Active Travel and Housing, Councillor Scott Archer-Patient, met to question money man Christopher Wilson and his pr team about their Calderdale Windfarm proposal.
According to Wadsworth Parish Councillors, who reported back on Christopher Wilson’s answers at their meeting the following evening, the money man’s role in the Calderdale Windfarm scheme is to sell it to UK and European pension funds, if planning permission is granted. This is because at that point the current Saudi investor only wants to retain a proportion of its current control of Calderdale Windfarm Ltd.
“A very good atmosphere”
Wadsworth Councillors reported that there was “a very good atmosphere” at the meeting with Christopher Wilson and the pr company.
They said he was “open about finance” and told them that “a Saudi family who have existing green energy investments” was providing the Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd shell company with the money for the proposed windfarm’s development.
However, the information about the Saudi money funding Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd is publicly available in the company’s annual accounts on the Companies House website; and they show that the “Saudi family who have existing green energy investments” is in fact Algihaz Holding, which describes itself as:
“Founded by Saeed Ali Al-Angari in 1975, Algihaz has grown from a construction contracting company to a multi-billion riyal strategic investment group.”
The “Saudi family” aka as Algihaz Holding is also a World Economic Forum partner, although Christopher Wilson did not tell the Parish Councillors.
Christopher Wilson and his pr team did tell the Councillors that,
- The minimum economically viable capacity of the proposed windfarm is 200MW – ie about 2/3 of the current proposal in the Calderdale Windfarm scoping report. That doesn’t necessarily mean 2/3 of the proposed 65 wind turbines, as turbine capacity depends on various factors.
- Calderdale Windfarm Ltd is a shell company.
- There are 6 other related windfarm proposals in the UK – the parish councillors thought this means that the Saudi company that controls Calderdale Windfarm Ltd is involved with all 7 schemes, but they didn’t seem too sure.
- The developers see Calderdale Windfarm as a test case and the most important of the 7 proposed on- shore windfarm schemes. There are “many hoops to jump through.”
- The Calderdale Windfarm partners are “frustrated by Calderdale Council’s delay” in producing its Scoping Opinion, which is now expected some time before Christmas.
- There is no transport plan for how to get the materials for construction of the wind farm onto Walshaw Moor.
What we still don’t know about money and corporate stuff – and Councillors didn’t ask
Councillors did not ask Christopher Wilson why the Calderdale Wind Farm website and its pr company have been claiming that the Gibraltar-based investment company trading as Worldwide Renewable Energy is one of the 3 partners involved in the development of the proposed windfarm, when the company was struck off in early March 2022. One Councillor said they had not asked the question because they considered it irrelevant.
There is the small matter of which company actually holds data on members of the public – because the Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd website says that Cavendish Consulting shares people’s personal data with WWRE – but the company that was trading as WWRE doesn’t exist:
Councillors did not ask about Christopher Wilson’s Wiltshire-based residents property management company Worldwide Renewable Energy (Global) Ltd, or why its annual accounts say the company is dormant and has not traded, while Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd’s company accounts for a comparable period show that it has received, spent and still holds considerable sums of money from the shell company.
Councillors did not ask about Algihaz Holding.
Councillors did not ask about how the windfarm construction would be carried out, if the Saudi company were to sell the bulk of its £500m investment in Calderdale Windfarm Ltd (the sum the Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd website says is already in place) to pension funds once planning permission were granted.
Pension funds are long term funders/investors. They don’t construct or run complex assets. If Planning Permission etc is granted then someone has to stump up the land cost and then the much larger job of construction. If this isn’t managed by Energy Horizon II Investment Company – Calderdale WInd Farm Ltd’s parent company-then perhaps it is going to be done by Al Gihaz Holding – its funder.
To run a £500 million project like this would need the explicit backing of a very large company. This could be one of the big UK based energy companies (for example Scottish Power operates the Whitelee Windfarm near Glasgow with 215 turbines). They are owned by a Spanish company – Iberdrola.
The contractors would probably be Siemens, Alstom or Vestas – there just aren’t that many companies that build these giant turbines – and they don’t contract with shell companies. Which Christopher Wilson admits Calderdale Windfarm Ltd is.
So I think there is quite a lot of missing information and some big questions about money and corporate probity that the Councillors didn’t ask.
This raises the question of who in the Council is responsible for due diligence of the windfarm proposal? And what role Councillors have in carrying out and scrutinising said due diligence?
More things we still don’t know
Nor did Councillors indicate the likely time frame for Calderdale Windfarm Ltd to submit a planning application, although Wadsworth Parish Council plans to hold a public meeting once this has been done.
Surely the timing of the planning application submission must depend on how long it takes to carry out the Environmental Impact Assessment, as determined by the Scoping Report?
The responsible Planning Officer’s Scoping Opinion, based on the Scoping Report and the consultees’ responses to it, will say what impacts of the proposed WInd Farm the Environmental Impact Assessment must investigate.
It seems from various consultee responses that surveys required for the Environmental Impact Assessment could take years to complete. This suggests that the Planning Application – and the Wadsworth Parish Council public meeting about it – could be way down the road.
For example, the Calderdale Council Biodiversity Consultee says,
“As stated by Natural England, the survey period should be a minimum of 2 years covering all relevant survey seasons. As the surveys carried out to date do not meet the guidelines for the minimum effort required, we would expect the survey duration be extended to reflect this, to produce a minimum two full years (covering all relevant survey seasons) of comprehensive survey data.”
The RSPB consultee response thinks a 3 year survey is more appropriate for Walshaw Moor,
“Given the importance and sensitivity of this site, we consider that 2 years’ worth of data is not sufficient to capture the variation in bird use between years, and therefore recommend that 3 years of comprehensive survey data would be more appropriate in this case.”
Wadsworth Parish Councillors recommend members of public to talk to Christopher Wilson and his pr team
They reported that Christopher Wilson and his pr team knew about the public meeting in Old Town last Wednesday and would like to talk to the group who’d organised it. Those present who’d organised the public meeting – who asked not to be named in this blogpost – told Councillors there was no group, just individual members of the public. Wadsworth Parish Councillors strongly recommended these members of the public to talk to the developers and would send them the email address to set this up.
Turning Calderdale Green 
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