Exclusive: Warning as spending cuts hit national park hydro schemes

The £450,000 River Bain Hydro scheme, which is owned and run by members of the community around Bainbridge, is becoming operational on May 13, providing energy for 50 households and saving 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

It follows on from the award-winning Settle Hydro, Yorkshire’s first community hydro project, and experts had hoped both schemes would provide the blueprint for an exciting future of water power across the Yorkshire Dales.

But the chief executive of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA), David Butterworth, has told the Yorkshire Post it is “extremely unlikely” any new schemes will get off the ground in the near future, despite strong interest from communities across the park. The authority has embarked on an unprecedented package of cost-cutting measures.

Mr Butterworth said: “Schemes like the community hydro project on the River Bain are unfortunately extremely unlikely to take place in the near future because of the collapse in public funding and particularly the demise of regional development agencies and the national park authority’s own substantial reduction in funding.

“We will continue to offer grants for feasibility studies for the most promising hydro sites in the national park through our small-scale hydro power feasibility fund until 2013, but these are more likely to be private initiatives rather than community schemes – a great pity.”

The news will come as a blow to residents across 15 Yorkshire Dales sites identified in a recent feasibility study as having the most potential for water hydro schemes, including Meal Bank at Ingleton, Rash Mill, Clapham, and Hardraw Beck near Hawes. The director of the River Bain Hydro project, Yvonne Peacock, said she had been contacted by more than 12 groups interested in setting up community hydro projects across North Yorkshire.

“This is a huge opportunity that might be missed out,” she said.

“This is going to be a problem because we did need grant money – we got £50,000 in a grant under Yorkshire Forward and it made a big difference.

“I don’t know where that is going to come from in the future. We are all in that terrible time at the minute where with the cuts it is going to be more difficult.

“People are going to need to have more imagination.

“We had some really good volunteers from the community who really did put their heart and soul into this and have put in an unbelievable amount of time.”

Despite the YDNPA’s warnings, managing director Steve Welsh of Water Power Enterprises which worked with the River Bain Hydro project to help get it off the ground, says he still predicts more than a dozen similar schemes will be set up in the Dales over the next 10 years.

“They are small tight-knit communities and the Dales is the perfect backdrop against which to launch these schemes”, he said.

“Obviously there has been serious cuts put people are still there to try and help with some of these costs. We have been absolutely surprised at how well these residents in Bainbridge have done – it has just snowballed.

“Other schemes will go ahead.”

The YDNPA is shedding 32 posts from its 140-strong workforce as the current annual Government grant of £5.4m will be reduced to £4.2m by 2014-15.

Every one of its 36 programmes is affected, and 12 are being abandoned.

Major cuts are being made to its climate change strategy, which has led to hydro-electric projects.

Visitor services in Reeth are also ending, while an education service, a public transport scheme and an events programme are being abandoned.