Rossendale and Darwen
Rossendale and Darwen has 75 MW of renewables running, enough for 66,000 homes over a year, and nothing large waiting in the planning queue. When the wires are too full to carry the power, Britain pays wind farms to switch off instead. No wind farm here is paid that way — almost all of it goes to wind farms in Scotland. That cost is shared across every bill in Britain, so households here pay for it too: about £92 a year per household, £4.1m across the constituency's 44,080 homes. There is also 75 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it. A 85 MW battery was refused planning here in 2025; while discharging it could have supplied about 298,000 homes.
Ranks 530 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rochdale Road, Edenfield - Battery StorageCubico Limited | Battery | 85 MW |
Refused by Rossendale Council in 2025Who can move it: Rossendale Council |
| Park Road Battery StorageArlington Energy Limited Avery Energy | Battery | 10 MW |
Approved 5 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
What else is in the briefing
- All 2 projects, each with its planning reference and the organisation that holds the next decision
- Every approval a project still needs, and which of them the public can see
- What building them would mean here — community payments, business rates and construction work
- How Rossendale and Darwen compares with its neighbouring constituencies
- Drafted parliamentary questions and letters, filled in with this seat's figures
- 3 story angles for local reporting
- A two-page PDF, and a newsroom edition with the references and who to call