St Bede's Catholic College in Lawrence Weston sits at the northern edge of the city of Bristol in the southwest of England. Behind it lies flood plain and the roar of the motorway. In the distance is Avonmouth, the industrial heartbeat of Bristol. Decades ago, schoolchildren would look out of classroom windows and see smoke of different colours rising from furnaces and smokestacks. Greens, whites, oranges, and blues. The flow of the smoke could be read to show the strength of the wind that day. On other days, visitors might come to the school to take blood samples from the students, for fear of the lead emitted by the petrol of the cars journeying nearby.

The school is different now. So is the view from the playground. Some things have stayed the same. The gas-fired Seabank Power Station still stands on Hallen Marsh to the north. Avonmouth Dock remains an expansive hub, connecting Bristol to global trade. The area also remains home to many industrial sites. I live nearby and we get a booklet dropped through our doors every year, advising what to do if we hear the ‘Severnside Siren’: an alarm, named after the nearby river, that warns us if a dangerous substance is accidentally released. However, the landscape is different; gone are many of the chimneys and the smoke acting as a weathervane. In their place lie wind turbines – some on the grounds of the nearby wastewater treatment plant owned by Wessex Water and Thrive Renewables, others at the Avonmouth Dock estate, one at a nearby wine-bottling plant, and more at the site of a former Shell oil tank.

A new turbine will soon join them. The previous construction of many wind turbines on this landscape was seen by many as neglecting the local community, with projects built outside residents’ windows but not always providing opportunities for their participation, engagement, or benefit. Soon one will be the community's own. Initially stemming from an idea between residents in a pub, the project is no small feat. It will be the tallest onshore turbine in the country and will generate enough electricity to power 3,000 homes. It will be community-owned and community-led via Ambition Community Energy, an offshoot of Ambition Lawrence Weston, a local organisation active in the neighbourhood.