Save Radnor Forest
Stop Nant Mithil energy park
Background
In May 2024 Bute Energy progressed its flagship Nant Mithil Energy Park to the formal stage by holding a statutory consultation. To that end a promotional brochure and a revised web site with approximately 1500 pages of technical documents was released and 3 consultations were held, staffed largely by bought in technical “experts” with little knowledge of the area concerned or wider issues. No directors of Bute Energy or the Nant Mithil Energy Park bothered to attend. The statutory consultation ended on June 24th 2024 and over 700 responses were received by the company. As this was a statutory consultation the company is obliged to deal with these responses in detail in a consultation report to PEDW as part of the planning process.
On December 20th 2024 Bute Energy submitted a planning application however on 18th February 2025 the Planning Inspector from PEDW (Planning and Environment Decisions Wales) wrote informing them that the Environmental Statement could not be verified as it was incomplete. The application was therefore put on hold whilst Bute's outdated surveys relating to birds, bats, badgers water vole and otter were updated. On October 14th 2025 new surveys were submitted and on November 3rd PEDW accepted the Environmental Statement as complete. On November 18th the full planning application with supporting documents amounting to several thousand pages was published.
What next
We and our consultants had until December 23rd 2025 to go through the documents and make our comments to PEDW. On December 17th 2005 the consultation was suspended because of concerns over redacting and availability of inspectors. The consultation resumed on January 12th 2026 for a further 5 weeks to February 16th 2026. At the end of this period over 2,000 responses had been received from interested parties (to view responses filter ‘interested parties’ on the PEDW web site). PEDW will now examine the application and responses, possibly with a public hearing part way through the process, before reaching a recommendation in several months’ time. As this is a DNS application (Development of National Significance) the final decision will be made by the Welsh Government Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning (currently Rebecca Evans correspondence.Rebecca.Evans@gov.wales ) who may or may not follow the recommendation of the planning inspector.
Events
Saturday 26th November 2025 - CPRW hosted a major Senedd election hustings on Saturday 29 November 2025 at 6.30 pm at the Llandovery Pool and Sports Centre/School Hall, Cilycwm Road, Llandovery, bringing together political parties to answer urgent questions about the future of rural Wales. Bute Energy were invited but declined to attend.
Thursday 4th December 2025 - James Evans MS hosted a Public Meeting with CPRW and RE-think on Bute Energy’s Nant Mithil Energy Park on Thursday 4th December at 7.00 pm at the Metropole, Llandrindod Wells. It was well attended by the public with standing room only AllI four Regional Senedd Members – Cefin Campbell MS; Jane Dodds MS; Eluned Morgan MS and Joyce Watson MS had been invited along with representatives from Bute Energy however none attended
Wednesday 11th February. 2026 - Hundreds of concerned residents from all over Mid Wales traveled to the Senedd to make their feelings known at the Protect Wales protest held on February 11th. The good natured crowd was addressed by campaign leaders and politicians from all parties except Labour and Plaid Cymru who declined to attend.. Click here for report in latest news.