20130418_NT

Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme

URL: N/A

Date: 18/04/2013

Event: The National Trust's "master plan to generate half its power from renewable sources by 2020"

Attribution: BBC Radio 4

People:

• Patrick Begg: Rural Enterprise Director, National Trust
• Roger Harrabin: BBC's Environment Analyst
• John Humphrys: Presenter, BBC Radio 4 Today programme

John Humphrys: The National Trust has revealed what it calls a master plan to generate half its power from renewable sources by 2020. The organisation already has 150 individual renewable schemes, but the new document looks at how fossil fuel will be reduced over the next few years, across its property portfolio - a very big one, of course. It won't include wind power, and the Trust has angered many environmentalists for what they say is the Trust Chairman's irresponsible campaign against wind power. From the River Wandle, on the southern edge of London, our Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin.

Roger Harrabin: I'm at Morden Hall Park in south west London, a National Trust property. I'm overlooking the old snuff mill, the last to close in London. And right in front of me is an Archimedes screw, a hydroelectric power system that generates power from a low head of water, said by the Trust to be the first in London. And this is an exemplar, the Trust say, of what can be achieved across their other properties. I'm joined by Patrick Begg, Rural Enterprise Director for the Trust. Patrick, you have, what, some 150 properties now that generate some of their own power but much bigger schemes are in the pipeline, I think.

Patrick Begg: That's right, Roger. Over the last decade or so, we've been developing renewables, but we've taken the opportunity, over the last year, to really think about where we might best put all our effort to make the big leap we want to make, in generating clean energy from our properties.

Roger Harrabin: Your target is to halve your use of fossil fuel by 2020.

Patrick Begg: That's right. And our new programme will get us there.

Roger Harrabin: You've got some quite innovative schemes in that.

Patrick Begg: A very innovative scheme - actually a marine-source heat pump, where we'll be putting the collectors on the seabed in the Menai Strait, and it will provide all the power for Plas Newydd Manor, which is actually our biggest oil user in the whole National Trust.

Roger Harrabin: And that system uses the differential in heat between the air temperature and the water temperature.

Patrick Begg: Yeah, always put to me as a "fridge working in reverse".

Roger Harrabin: And from your point of view, this looks like it's going to be a good investment.

Patrick Begg: It's a cracking investment, and our Board - we're very impressed by the kind of returns that we think we can deliver, which is around 10.5%, alongside the income and revenue that we can generate. We think it's a great decision.

Roger Harrabin: Talking about your Board, your Chairman is a controversial figure in green circles - Simon Jenkins the columnist, vociferously campaigning against wind power. You're looking to burn wood and to get power from small-scale hydro - wind is the most efficient, for ordinary people. Some people say you - you're being rather hypocritical about this.

Patrick Begg: Well, the Trust position has always been really clear. We're not anti-wind, we're anti wind in the wrong place, at the wrong scale and badly designed.

Roger Harrabin: The argument, though, is that Simon Jenkins, by so vociferously espousing the anti-wind cause, is actually knocking wind power in the UK, generally.

Patrick Begg: Well, Simon has some very strong opinions about wind, which he's perfectly free to express. The Trust's position, though, has always been really clear, that we're not anti-wind per se, it's just the wrong wind in the wrong place.

Roger Harrabin: Let me just ask you, also, about the issue of renewable subsidies, because the National Trust is a very middle-class organisation. The subsidies to renewable power get paid by all bill payers, including the poor, including people in fuel poverty. Is there any misgiving about that?

Patrick Begg: Er... No, I can't say at the moment there is. It seems to us that the bills that attach to not tackling climate change are so overwhelming - quite apart from the damage it does to our conservation concerns, which is our core business, after all - makes it entirely appropriate for us to give that renewable energy business a kick start.

Roger Harrabin: Do you think perhaps you should be doing more for the poor, people in fuel poverty, maybe allow them free entry to Trust properties?

Patrick Begg: Er... Well, most of our estate is free to enter.

Roger Harrabin: Patrick Begg, thank you very much.

Patrick Begg: Thanks, Roger.