Villanueva de Oscos is the first municipality in Asturias to stop a wind farm on its territory. The Asturias Supreme Court of Justice (TSJA) has upheld the municipal general assembly’s decision to reject the initial approval of the specific plan for the Escorpio wind farm, consisting of six wind turbines, due to its proximity to the town of Villanueva. de Oscos, its acoustic and visual impact and the accumulation of wind installations in the area.
The park’s organizer, a company owned by the Capital Energy group, which has the largest number of wind projects in the pipeline in Asturias, requested initial approval of the specific plan for the Escorpio park in May 2018. They do not foresee such a facility in city planning and municipal buildings in southwestern Asturias – where wind farms are considered – with few technical means, there are many doubts about how to behave. The Villanueva de Oscos City Council has been slow to respond, as other municipal councils in the area have done with other projects, and the park’s owners thought the positive silence was working. However, the general assembly of the Villanueva de Oscos City Council agreed to reject the initial approval of the specific plan for the Scorpion park in May 2021, three years after the request.
The owners of the wind farm filed a contentious administrative appeal against the City Council’s decision, which the Asturias Supreme Court of Justice just rejected. The court’s decision, to which this newspaper had access, states that “positive silence is the general rule that should theoretically inspire administrative action”, but adds that “this general rule is an exception when it comes to approving planning tools.” Additionally, the magistrates who signed the sentence state that the motivation for rejecting the plan was “clear, specific, and unambiguous” and denies that it was “broken by the handling of the reasons for opportunity and not,” as the park’s organizers claim. legal reasons”.
The City Council had claimed that the 19.8-megawatt park is “too close” to the center of Villanueva de Oscos, “therefore, we are at the expense of a large acoustic and visual impact from the town hall itself, in and around much of our citizens’ homes and services.” The Santa Maria church and cloister, a 12th-century Property of Cultural Interest, where the Living Way of the Cross festival is celebrated, has been declared a Regional Tourist Interest Festival, making a huge claim to the region’s tourism sector”. In addition, the Company also highlighted the “accumulation” of wind installations in the region (there are already three projects in Villanueva de Oscos and several projects in the Oscos-Eo region).
“What the city councils have said and now the Chamber has confirmed is that the city planning powers gave them a margin of maneuver against the installation of wind farms so that they did not have to accept the project submitted by the company without further ado.” , noted Administrative Law professor Alejandro Huergo, who advocated for the Villanueva de Oscos City Council through the University of Oviedo Foundation.
Sources from Capital Energy pointed out that “possible courses of action will be analyzed to arrive at a solution beneficial for all parties”. However, they noted that Scorpio had a positive impact statement and positive reports from Cultural Heritage and was compliant with regulations by being located more than two kilometers from town.