Sunak’s wind farm stance at odds with Tory voters’

The British public overwhelmingly backs the construction of new wind farms and is increasingly hostile to non-renewable energy sources, a new poll has found.

- JON STONE

The survey, released as the world's governments meet for the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt, shows 74 per cent of people support building more wind farms, including 72 per cent of Conservative voters. Rishi Sunak last week indicated he would keep in place the government's ban on new onshore wind farms ditching a promise by Liz Truss to allow new green power installations.

The U-turn comes despite overwhelming support for renewables and the prime minister telling Cop27 that such energy sources were needed to "insure ourselves against the risks of energy dependency" and would unlock "new jobs and growth". Pollster Opinium asked a representative sample of British adults whether they supported investment in various energy sources and found 51 per cent strongly in favour of wind farms, 23 per cent somewhat in favour, with just 2 per cent strongly opposed and 4 per cent somewhat opposed.