Local publics and offshore wind farms: constructing evidence in significant infrastructure planning

Speaker: Professor Yvonne Rydin (UCL Bartlett School of Planning)
Chair: Professor Maria Lee (UCL Laws)

About the lecture

The regulation of offshore wind farms and other major renewable energy infrastructure provides an opportunity to examine the processes put in place by the Planning Act 2008. There has been little research on the operation of the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) regime to date and an ESRC-funded project (Rydin, Lee, Lock and Natarajan No. 164522) is currently filling this gap. The project focuses particularly on how local publics are involved and their representations constructed – or not – as evidence. In this lecture, research on the NSIPs regime, based on detailed reading of extensive documentation, supplemented with on-going interviews, focus groups and attendance at hearings, will be used to show how science and technology studies (STS) offers insights into how the voice of local publics is constructed, the way that knowledge claims are recognised as evidence, and the role that material artefacts play in the hearings and deliberations.

About the speaker

Yvonne Rydin has been at UCL since 2006. Before that she was at the LSE in the Department of Geography and Environment for 16 years. Prior to that she taught at the University of East London (Departments of Applied Economics and Land Mangement) and De Montfort University (School of Land and Building Studies). Yvonne has a BA in Land Economy (with Economics Part 1) and a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning Studies. She is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and an accredited Mediator.

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