Expanding The Northern Eco
Plus more battery energy storage plans and a round up of all the news from across the region
Good morning! I’m Sarah Hartley and this is The Northern Eco weekly update. As you’ve received this newsletter then either you subscribed, or someone forwarded it to you. If the latter, then you can click on this handy little button below.
We’re starting today’s newsletter with something of a station announcement, but don’t worry, the usual round up of headlines from around the region is still down below and includes:
Catching up with Richmondshire Climate Action Partnership’s Repair Cafe and Eco Fair
Water news from United Utilities, the Environment Agency and a North Yorkshire farm
An academic making the case for controversial waste incinerators
Extra eco reporting for you in 2025
We’ve some exciting news to share with you all this morning - The Northern Eco is expanding!
As well as articles from myself and other contributors, we’ve now been accepted as news partners on the BBC’s Local Democracy Reporting Scheme (LDRS).
The LDRS has been running since 2017 following more than two years of talks and planning with experts from across the UK media industry. It now supports more than 1,100 news partners from print, broadcast and online news outlets by providing free access to news content generated by about 165 Local Democracy Reporters.
Those reporters are based across the UK and are funded by the BBC as part of its Charter commitment, but employed by regional news organisations.
In order to qualify as a news partner, we’ve had to meet certain criteria of trustworthiness (more on that below) but, in brief, it means you can be secure that we operate within a framework of regulation even as the media world becomes an increasingly wild west environment.
What does this mean for me as a reader?
The eagle-eyed among you might already have noticed articles with the byline of well-known local journalist Joe Willis. Joe is a Local Democracy Reporter as well as being the founder and editor of RichmondshireToday. He mostly covers North Yorkshire County Council in this role and was previously a former North-East Journalist of the Year. He has worked in the regional press for more than 15 years at newspapers including The Northern Echo, Darlington and Stockton Times and Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph.
Last week we started publishing some of his stories, such as this, this and below. Last week’s reports were published direct to the website, so those of you who have the app or visit us online will have already seen them. But this brings me to an important question that I would value your input on - how often would you like to receive our news via email newsletters? Please do vote in this poll or get in touch. My first thought was to continue sending this weekly newsletter, just as we do now, but publish Joe’s work and any other stories direct to the website and social media so it’s there in a timely way for those most interested. However, I’m in your hands, you tell me……
As mentioned above, we operate within the framework of the UK regulator Impress which we submitted to voluntarily - you’ll have seen their name in the footer of these emails. This costs us money each year but I felt it was very important to make it possible for us to be held to account, as we do others. Being regulated means that as a reader you have a route to redress if you feel we have been inaccurate.
‘Astonishing rate’ of battery storage proposals prompts Summit call
By Joe Willis, local democracy reporter
Council chiefs have been urged to work on a coordinated strategy for controversial battery energy storage systems (BESS) as three more plants are proposed for North Yorkshire.
Preliminary details have been submitted to North Yorkshire Council for a BESS plant at Scruton, near Northallerton, another at Shipton-by-Beningbrough, north of York, and a third at nearby Wigginton.
The individual developers have asked council officers if environmental impact assessments are needed ahead of full planning applications being filed.
Plans have recently been submitted for 1GW BESS plants on land at South Kilvington, near Thirsk, and fields near East Rounton, between Northallerton and Yarm,.
The county already has a 100MW BESS plant at Drax, near Selby, which was the country’s largest when it went live last year.
Consultation concerns
While BESS plans on brownfield sites have proved less controversial, local residents have formed a campaign group to oppose the scheme on fields at South Kilvington, with concerns also raised about the East Rounton proposal during the initial consultation process.
In an open letter to mayors and local authority leaders in North Yorkshire and Teesside, Kevin Foster, leader of the Green Party group on North Yorkshire Council, has called for a coordinated strategy on BESS.
In the letter, Cllr Foster said proposed BESS schemes were emerging at “an astonishing rate”.
“There is an opportunity to develop collective expertise for assessing the complex safety and regulatory issues which will emerge during the planning process for these projects.
“There is an opportunity to support the repurposing of legacy generation sites such as Hartlepool Nuclear Power station and Drax.”
Calling for council chiefs to take part in a regional summit to discuss the plants, the councillor said: “This is a key issue and a big opportunity for our region. These projects are emerging now and in large numbers, so we need to act now.
“I am calling for the mayors of our combined mayoral authorities, and the leaders of North Yorkshire, York City, Middlesborough, Stockton, Hartlepool, and Redcar and Cleveland councils, to work together to realise this opportunity and deliver the best possible outcome for our region from BESS.”
Councillor Malcolm Taylor, who represents an area where two of the three new BESS plants are sited, supported Cllr Foster’s call.
“I think there is a risk we end up dealing with the plans in a very piecemeal way and I think it does need a more holistic approach. A coordinated approach sounds eminently sensible to me.”
BESS, which need to be built near high voltage power lines, store energy from renewable sources, like solar and wind, and then release it when the electricity is needed most.
The three most clicked links from last week were:
In the news
🌏 It was great to meet some of you in person at the weekend’s Repair Cafe and Eco Fair organised by the Richmondshire Climate Action Partnership. The many visitors who braved icy footpaths on Sunday morning were rewarded with a film screening, refreshments, free repairs of items large and small as well as the chance to connect with conservation, campaign and eco organisations like ourselves.
🐿️ A 9-year-old boy is following in his father’s footsteps by taking stunning photographs of Northumberland wildlife. Hannah Fitzhugh at the Northumberland Gazette shows off his pictures taken on a walk in Wooler.
💦 The Guardian has been running several days of reports looking the impact of so-called ‘forever chemicals’ on the waterways of the UK. This story about the impact on otter populations caught my eye but it’s worth delving across the multiple stories for more on a topic we’re sure to be reading plenty about this year.
💦 “I’ve lived and worked on this farm for 17 years and for some time I’ve been wondering about the quality of the water flowing through the farm and its potential to support aquatic life.” The Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust joins a dairy farmer for river testing.
💦 The Environment Agency reports that a farming business has been fined and ordered to pay costs totalling more than £10,000 for twice polluting a watercourse and breaching slurry regulations.
💦 Water company United Utilities has conceded defeat in its legal battle to block public access to data on treated sewage it is discharging into Windermere in the Lake District, writes Jon Ungoed-Thomas at The Guardian.
🗑️ There’s a lot of concern and campaigning going on in response to plans for a new waste incinerator on the Teesworks site. The Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility (TVERF) is a joint project between the Tees Valley’s five councils along with Durham County Council and Newcastle City Council, and will burn waste which isn’t recycled to produce energy. However, this Manchester Metropolitan University academic argues that “burning waste is a dirty way to generate power – but it’s the least bad alternative until we fix recycling.” Read the full article from Edward Randviir in The Conversation.
🚮 The Climate Action Stokesley and Villages group is turning attention to microplastics for its column in the D&S highlighting the Plastic Free Communities award which encourages local businesses to reduce single use plastic, and community groups, schools and organisations to hold events such as litter picks and beach cleans, with support from the local council.
🐄 Continuing with our attempts to call out nonsense claims on social media where we can…. Last week there was misinformation being circulated again about Bovaer, the animal feed supplement which is being trialed to reduce methane, a major Green House Gas problem in cattle. We’ve seen this supplement being attacked before - regular readers will remember the TikTok nonsense of wasted milk. In cases like this, I look to factcheckers like Full Fact to ensure facts are facts before sharing - Bovaer has not been found to have adverse effects on cattle fertility.
🦫 Natural England executives are furious that years of painstaking work to bring the beaver back to Britain’s rivers has been undone according to Helena Horton at The Guardian.
🐿️ Jonathan Willis estate agents in Barnard Castle have put a red squirrel reserve and wildlife sanctuary up for sale. The 37 acre Mirk Pot Woods at Snaizeholme, near Hawes in North Yorkshire has a guide price of £0.5M. (Good to know where to spend that Lottery win if ever my numbers come up or a generous benefactor suddenly appears on the crowdfunding front!)
🚜 More than 200 young people have been helped to start their own businesses by the Farmer Network, writes Gavin Engelbrecht at the D&S.
⚡️ Redcar and Cleveland Council has been asked for a ‘screening opinion’ on a potential new battery energy storage plant on farmland off the A171 near Guisborough, reports Stuart Arnold at the D&S.
⚡️ Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen has been appointed to the Clean Energy Sector Council to support the drive for green jobs and growth across the UK. Mike Hughes at The Northern Echo has more.
⚡️ A County Durham museum is set to benefit from the installation of solar panels after plans to install 113 near Locomotion in Shildon were approved, reports Joshua Nichol, an AI assisted reporter at The Northern Echo. This is the first of the AI assisted reporters we’ve seen in action locally and marks a change in the way local papers are carrying out some of their reporting by harnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. Read more about this move here.
We’ll be back next Tuesday - have a great week!
As next week is the last Tuesday of the month, we’ll bring you the latest eco reading recommendations from Claire and Alan at The Wonky Tree along with the news round-up.
🌼 Thank you for reading edition number 118 of The Northern Eco. If you feel having this independent, free unless you want to pay and ad-free newsletter is worth a few of your hard-earned £, please do join our paying subscribers. The main newsletter is sent out at 7am every Tuesday and can’t exist without paying subscribers. 🙏
Great news about the expansion and the involvement with the BBC's LDRS. Well done, Sarah.
I've said I'd prefer emails but that's because I don't sit in front of my laptop all day, nor do I have my phone by my side at all times, (old-fashioned, I know!) and I'm very lazy about looking up websites just to see what the latest news is. I could adopt the regular website habit but emails are a prompt.
Interesting article on BESS plants. Will we see this label being shortened to just BESS in future . Surely BESS plant is tautology? And that is pedantry.