Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won the 2013 Forward Prize. His topical verse and satire appears in the Spectator, and his puzzles and problems in the Sunday Times and American Mathematical Monthly. Email: nipmackinnon@gmail.com
Crow Hill Junction SD 95801 36493 ///depth.dampen.showcases
Map of walk to Crow Hill Junction: WTRG Teddy is tied to a completely buried 3-metre avalanche probe at Crow Hill Junction. Crow Hill summit is the shapely hill. Three heavy haulage floating tracks are meant to meet here. CWF Ltd admit in their PEIR that an area of one km2 around Crow Hill Junction is the leading source of bog bursts in England. We shall show that the primary cause of this unique status is the unique geology of Crow Hill. WTRGCalderdale Energy Park is on a wholly unsuitable site that would be destructive of outstanding nature and world famous heritage. All this would be made clear in the Examination phase of the DCO, but it would be at huge expense and would require the attention of agencies with much better things to do. CEP is an embarrassment to the policies of the government, and because it is so obviously bad, it will undermine the Net Zero policy. CEP is a venture capital gamble that exploits the desire of the British people to act on climate change. Any political party who oppose renewables can point to CEP as a terrible example, and now that Calderdale Council is run by Reform, they are doing just that and the proposal is an indefensible open goal. Pretending CEP is not on the worst site in England is like pretending Joe Biden was in tip-top cognitive condition.
In my reports to Mustapha Hajjar, CEO of Algihaz, I say that closing down CEP as soon as possible is in the UK national interest. We must not embarrass international investors at a Public Inquiry, but CEP has been managed so incompetently that Algihaz must expect to be humiliated day after day. We must not publicly undermine grid decarbonisation, but CEP is so hopeless that Reform are understandably using it as a whipping boy. We must not undermine the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, but CEP does exactly that on what is meant to be the pinnacle of internationally designated land.
WTRG have now done the research and supplied the legal framework for two letters-before-action being sent by two different local authorities, each with precise locus standi (relevant connection). One is on the Aggregates, which readers here have been following since Bedlam Knoll in April 2024 and is sent by Colne Town Council and Laneshaw Bridge Parish Council communities which must suffer the unconsulted 616,000 tonnes of non-calcareous hardstone that CWF Ltd have finally admitted they must import. That letter has now arrived in Riyadh and Blyth and it must be answered. The KCs employed by Algihaz will struggle with the specifics and the pushback is expected to be formidable but generic.
Government policy about NSIP consultation changed on 26 July 2026, but these letters-before-action are not rooted in ephemeral government policy but in English common law in respect of Gunning. CWF Ltd held consultations and the claimants say they were not lawful.
The second letter, from Haworth-with-Stanbury Village Council is on Crow Hill, which is the only site in mainland UK to have hosted multiple bog bursts. The formal evidence is the subject of this blog. The PEIR report on peat landslides Appendix 10-4 by AJM of OWC is now completely shredded. AJM missed the 1989 bog slide that was in his own references, Ross 2020 and Dykes & Warburton 2007. The embarrassment is the greater because Professor Jeff Warburton was AJM’s doctoral supervisor and gives a photograph of the 1989 debris that he took in 2005. Among numerous other failings, AJM mixes up the big bog bursts: it is the one on The Wage of Crow Hill that smashes down the Worth and Aire and leaves peat stains in the Humber. The other one is on Crow Hill Wague and as yet undated; the 1989 bog slide is also on Crow Hill Wague. Crow Hill is existential to the proposal but WTRG have shredded the peat landslide report. Christian Egal did his bit by failing to insist that peat depths were taken in advance of the Statutory Consultation.
The 3-metre avalanche pole broke as it was extracted from full depth at Crow Hill Junction. It died doing what it loved. WTRGThe fiasco on Walshaw Moor has been caused by our society not taking climate change seriously. We leave site choice for wind farms to the very landowners who have pulverised our upland environment. Because our governments are squeamish about using existing law to purchase suitable wind farm sites in the national interest, we have allowed frivolous and incompetent venture capitalists to get quite close to consent for the worst site in England. These venture capitalists propose three heavy haul tracks over the most unstable peat in England on Crow Hill, the source of the only multiple bog bursts in the UK, yet fail to provide their own consultants with the data to assess this unstable ground in time for statutory consultation. Bone-idle incompetence led them to abandon a difficult access route via Halifax in favour of the unstable Crow Hill. They proposed Crow Hill so late that it was impossible for anyone to assess the ground, including their own consultants and they have assembled a legal bomb under their own proposal.
Using the divisive and ignorant rhetoric of former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his former Chancellor Rachel Reeves, keyboard warriors will say “bats and newts” defeated an NSIP. In fact, incompetent venture capitalists lost control of their own consultants. They made it an unlawful laughing stock.
The bar for a Gunning claim is set high. Legal evidence has to be rigorous and precise and the claimant has to have good locus standi. The claim would be diluted if it was padded with less focused arguments. There is no legal bar to anyone representing generic arguments at a DCO examination but all they will do is take the pressure off the Algihaz KCs.
A Gunning claim can only be made effective (by judicial review) if consent is given by the Secretary of State (presently Miatta Fahnbulleh). The immediate power of the evidence in legal form is that it alters the risk calculus for the venture capitalists and alerts Algihaz of a serious threat to their reputation. We expect intense generic legal pushback on Crow Hill, but since that cannot be based on the admitted ignorance and demonstrated incompetence of PEIR Appendix 10-4, it must be ineffective and counterproductive and will supply further ammunition for judicial review.
In a nutshell, the problem for the Algihaz KCs is that CEP could have come via Halifax but Algihaz preferred the simpler geometry of Colne and Crow Hill, the most potent bog burst location in mainland UK and this inverts the mitigation hierarchy. If CEP survives Examination, gets some kind of positive outcome from the Planning Inspectors and Miatta Fahnbulleh gives consent, she and the Planning Inspectorate will lose at judicial review on the double whammy of unlawful consultations on Aggregates and Crow Hill.
On Crow Hill, Christian Egal, the Inspector Clouseau of Renewables, does all the things that the Planning Inspectorate gently told him not to in their logged opinion and advice, and he does them on the the most unstable peat in England.
What follows is the evidence base for the Gunning letter-before-action, minus 50 footnotes. The actual letter joins the dots explicitly and maps the argument onto case law, which is over 40 years deep. It is the intention of this letter to cause Algihaz to withdraw Calderdale Energy Park in the British national interest, which will also be their own interest.
Evidence that the proposal for Calderdale Energy Park is unlawful under English common law in respect of Gunning.
- Unscoped expansion of CEP red line to Crow Hill
At a late stage, and without a new Scoping Opinion from the Planning Inspectorate (PINS), CWF propose heavy infrastructure on Crow Hill within an unscoped expansion of the site red line.
- Crow Hill is the leading source of repeated bog bursts in the mainland UK
Analysis of the Preliminary Peat Landslide Hazard and Risk Assessment presented by CWF as Appendix 10-4 in their PEIR (8 April 2026) shows that Crow Hill is the leading source of repeated bog bursts in the mainland UK. Bog bursts have far greater consequences than peat slides. These bog bursts occur in the very deep peat on Crow Hill Wague and The Wage of Crow Hill and involve basal peat turning to a pressurised slurry.
- Consequences of a bog burst on Crow Hill
The effects on rivers would be extensive and have been experienced before. Also, the wind farm assets could be stranded; government policies encouraging renewables would be undermined; the event would destroy part of the internationally designated SPA (red-listed birds) and of the internationally designated SAC (peatland habitats) on Walshaw Moor.
- No relevant data were given in the PEIR because none has been gathered
Not only is this proposed extension of the site red line to encompass Crow Hill made at a late stage, but no relevant data had been gathered when Appendix 10-4 was written; therefore none was published in the PEIR for Statutory Consultation; and the author of Appendix 10-4 disclaims analysis on Crow Hill, which he explicitly defers to beyond Statutory Consultation. Furthermore, the timing of the Statutory Consultation (8 April 2026 – 10 June 2026) in the ground-nesting bird season (1 March – 31 July) precluded consultees from collecting relevant data until 1 August 2026. It was not possible for anyone to give Crow Hill intelligent consideration.
- Engineering constraints on CEP proposal
The annotated drawing is on an elevation-shaded base map provided in Appendix 10-4. The red line expansion is in the area at the north, between the former red line and Crow Hill. The CEP site is divided by the Walshaw Dean reservoirs in a steep-sided valley. Delivery of turbine components from the proposed single point of entry at the north of the site (served eventually by the M65) requires a crossing of Walshaw Dean divide. Two crossings are presently proposed in PEIR and are shown in the yellow circles.
- A bridge over Alcomden Water
- Crow Hill junction with a floating track over the very deep peat of Red Mires Flat and Middle Moor Flat. This track is called “the Stanbury Bog Expressway” (SBE) in the published analyses. The SBE requires the extension of the original red line as shown in the map.
The proposal as configured cannot be built without :
- Access over Crow Hill from the M65 for the 31 wind turbines, the 33kV/132 kV onsite transformers and 616,000 tonnes of non-calcareous hardstone that cannot be won onsite.
- A crossing of Walshaw Dean, either at the Crow Hill junction or at Alcomden Water.
A half-size wind farm might be proposed west of the divide without a crossing but this would be a materially different proposal and at c. 130 MW could probably not sustain the cost of the specified buried 132 kV cable to Bradford West, some 18 km distant. There is doubt over the practicality of the Alcomden Water crossing and CWFL consultant Donald Mackay told Nick and Lydia MacKinnon at Haworth (19 May 2026) that, “I double up. I need that access across Stanbury Bog in case they don’t let me have Alcomden bridge.” Donald Mackay is held in the highest regard for his consistent frankness about engineering realities.
- Peat slides and bog bursts
Appendix 10-4 has very serious specific errors of fact and specific methodological flaws which are described in 11-13. However, its generic methods are standard and we follow them. Direct quotations from Appendix 10-4 are distinguished by a blue font.
Peat Instability in the UK and Ireland
In October 2003, a peat failure occurred on an afforested wind farm site in Derrybrien, County Galway, Ireland, causing disruption to the site and large-scale fish kill in the adjoining watercourses (Lindsay and Bragg, 2004). The Derrybrien event triggered interest in the influence of wind farm construction and operation on peatlands, particularly in relation to potential risks arising from construction induced peat instability. In 2007, the (then) Scottish Executive published guidelines on peat landslide hazard and risk assessment in support of planning applications for wind farms on peatland sites in Scotland. The guidance has been in use since then and was updated in 2017. Since then, a number of peat landslide events have occurred both naturally and in association with wind farms. In the case of wind farm sites, these have rarely been reported, however in December 2016, a plant operator was killed during excavation works in peat at the Derrysallagh wind farm site in Co. Leitrim (Flaherty, 2016) on a plateau in which several published examples of instability had been previously reported.
The Derrybrien event is the subject of an extensive report by Richard Lindsey and Olivia Bragg. Following the event, An Bord Pleanála refused substitute consent for the wind farm in February 2022 and a subsequent enforcement notice issued and served from Galway County Council in August 2024 means that the whole wind farm (70 turbines 59.5 MW) must be decommissioned. The source of the Derrybrien peat landslide had not produced any previous events, let alone the repeated events on Crow Hill from 1824-1989.
- Types of Peat Instability
For the purposes of this assessment, landslide classification is simplified and split into three main types. […]
The term “peat slide” is used to refer to large-scale (typically less than 10,000 of cubic metres) landslides in which failure initiates as large rafts of material which subsequently break down into smaller blocks and slurry. […] The term “bog burst” is used to refer to very large-scale (usually greater than 10,000 of cubic metres) spreading failures in which the landslide retrogresses (cuts) upslope from the point of failure while flowing downslope. […] Bog bursts are rarely (if ever) reported in the UK, other than in the Western Isles of Scotland (e.g. Bowes, 1960), and notably, immediately to the north of the Turbine Area. (Appendix 10-4.2.2)
In fact, Appendix 10-4 divides peat landslides into peat slides and bog bursts. Bog bursts are the most destructive kinds of peat landslide in which basal peat turns into liquid slurry; the Crow Hill junction of CEP is in the middle of the source of most of the bog bursts recorded in the UK; all of the turbine components and 616,000 tonnes of hardstone must be delivered across Crow Hill; yet CWF have failed to provide for Statutory Consultation the required peat depth data and therefore any adequate analysis of Crow Hill. Appendix 10-4 is clear that the analysis of bog burst risk is different from the much more common peat slide risk.
Further analysis of Crow Hill on the lines laid out by Appendix 10-4 shows the problems are even more significant. Failures by the author of Appendix 10-4 to master his own references, or to refer to the Scoping Opinion adopted by the Secretary of State (adopted 10 October 2025), in which Haworth-with Stanbury Council laid out the scope of the problem on Crow Hill, makes the CWF consultation deficit more culpable and exposes Algihaz to reputational risk.
- Crow Hill disclaimer by AJM
The spatial scope of this PPLHRA at PEIR is limited to the Turbine Area within which turbines are proposed and does not extend to covering the Access Routes nor the Bradford West Cable Corridor, as shown in Plate 1.1. These components of the Proposed Development will be assessed once supporting peat depth data is available.
Although AJM admits that Crow Hill is beyond the spatial scope of his report, he is compelled to make some analysis of the Crow Hill bog bursts because they are so close to the turbine area and so significant in extent and consequences as to be famous. The Crow Hill bog bursts are much more significant than peat landslide risks inside the turbine area because the latter can be mitigated by moving the infrastructure, which is called “micrositing”; or by simply removing a turbine. The Crow Hill infrastructure cannot be microsited or removed because it is existential to the whole proposal. Analysis of Crow Hill instability should therefore have preceded analysis of the turbine area. This point was made by several statutory consultees in the Scoping Opinion adopted by the Secretary of State on 10 October 2025, including Haworth-with-Stanbury PC, and is an aspect of the Overarching Opinion of PINS concerning extension of the site boundary red line.
- Response of Haworth-with-Stanbury PC to CEP Scoping Report
As it turned out, the Statutory Consultation was delayed from “Winter 2025” suggested at Scoping until 8 April 2026. There was therefore ample time to do the necessary peat probing on Crow Hill. We estimate that two days on-site work would have sufficed.
- Scoping Opinion of Planning Inspectorate
We analyse this Overarching comment by PINS in 20 below. The extension of the proposal onto the unique bog burst terrain of Crow Hill constitutes a potentially dangerous material change to the development and the applicant should certainly have requested a new scoping opinion from PINS. In their responses to the request, the consultees would require full data and independent analysis of Crow Hill. It would only have taken a few days to extend the existing peat depth survey to Crow Hill, so the failure to supply data in the PEIR for Statutory Consultation should already have been explained and justified by CWF and has not been.
- PEIR Appendix 10-4 mixes up the bog bursts
Although AJM has disclaimed Crow Hill in the PEIR analysis of peat landslides, the Crow Hill events are so significant, and so close to the turbine area that some comment is required. Because AJM has failed to master the references that he uses (Ross 2020 and Dykes & Warburton 2007) he mixes up the earlier bog bursts and misses out the 1989 bog burst entirely.
Outside the Turbine Area to the north, the Crow Hill bog burst (a much reported peat landslide, documented by Rev. Patrick Brontë (Ross, 2020) is located to the west of the Western Access Route. The landslide took place in 1824 (c. 200 years ago), and remains visible in the landscape (Plate 3.3d). It occurs within gently sloping peatland drained by Crow Hill Beck and is likely to have been triggered by sidewall collapse of the watercourse, possibly during a spate event. […] While bog burst features do not ty