Orsted's community benefit fund for Isle of Man windfarm

Transcript

00:00You mentioned the community benefit fund, can you talk a bit more about that please?

00:04Yeah, so we set up community funds for a number of our projects, not just actually in the UK but

00:10around the world. What we're proposing to do for Morvanin is £1.5 million a year for 15 years,

00:17so that's about £22.5 million. That will run for 15 years. It will be an opportunity for the

00:25community to gain funding for a whole range of initiatives. If we look at what we've done,

00:30for example, in the east coast and west coast of the UK, it's been everything from

00:34supporting fishing initiatives to community facilities, a whole range of services and

00:42capital projects such as playgrounds and so on, which we would expect that money to be used on.

00:48We run it as an arm's length programme, so we don't decide where the money goes. That's done

00:53by an independent body, but perhaps John you want to just expand on that a bit?

00:57Yeah, really only to say that it's been quite encouraging some of the conversation with

01:01stakeholders we've had over the last few months on similar funds. We know of a lot of different

01:06funds, we know Manx Lottery Trust for example, there's an opportunity there to follow what they

01:10do. I'm certainly encouraged that the amount of money we've offered is a larger amount than we've

01:15had on other benefit funds we've run in the UK per year, but there's an appetite for that level

01:21funding on the island. I don't think we will struggle to find projects we can support,

01:26however we'll support the funding. It will be an arm's length body, as Ben says, who will

01:31be a, whether it's a board of trustees or some other governance model, we'll provide the funding

01:36and they will decide on the best projects year to year to use it, hopefully for the benefit of the

01:40whole island community from the project. How are the trustees or members of a board

01:48recruited to this? So it is, we've done this in the UK before and I think we'll probably follow

01:53a similar process, which is we would have a further consultation, so we're obviously talking

01:58about a fund which will run when we're in operation, we expect operation will be 2031 or 32,

02:03so we have a bit of time to work out all the systems and governance process under Manx Law

02:09of course. But I think the best way you can do it is have an all-island consultation on what people

02:15want, so whether it's the projects or the causes and how the governance should operate.

02:20As I say, it's arm's length, so I won't give you an Orsted opinion, I'll give you a personal

02:26opinion, which is I think it's probably best that it has representatives from all over the island,

02:30so that you have the geographical spread, ensuring that all communities from north to south

02:36and east to west can have a say on how the funds are distributed. But as I say, it's subject to

02:41what the community wants from direct funding from this particular call.