As the UK forges ahead with a low-carbon energy strategy leaning heavily on hydrogen, offshore wind and nuclear, Vattenfall’s Frank Elsworth is dismayed that a “needless fear” is hobbling the prospects of the fastest-to-build, cheapest green technology of all – onshore wind.

A cloud has hung over UK onshore wind since 2015, when the ruling Conservative government took it out of the nation’s renewables auction system and brought in tough planning rules after an election campaign that explicitly promised action to stop turbines – as some politicians saw it – despoiling England’s green and pleasant land.