Nine wind farm appeals lodged
Nine appeals have been made against Meridian Energy’s resource consent application to build 176 wind turbines on the Lammermoor range.
Environment Court case manager Chris Jordan said more appeals could be lodged but it seemed most appellants had received hearing results on or before November 1.
There is a period of 15 working days after receiving hearing results in which to lodge an appeal and it expired yesterday.
Mr Jordan said the appeals would be entered in a database and the files would go to Judge Jon Jackson, who would issue directions.
The files were unlikely to be put on what he called the standard case track, which typically had just one or two appeals and generally related to subdivisions.
He said this was much bigger and would have its own set of directions. Those directions could involve getting parties to a pre-hearing and then, depending on the outcome, hearings could be held next year.
‘‘We won’t know until the judge looks at the appeal points and then makes a decision.’’
Contact Energy wants a condition in the consents to guarantee Otago’s transmission lines can handle output from the development before the tur bines start generating.
Other appellants are the Upland Landscape Protection Society; the Maniototo Environ mental Society; Eric and Cate Laurenson, from Paerau; Ian and Sarah Manson, from Pae rau; John, Sue and Andrew Douglas, from Alexandra Gaelle Soguel Dit-Piquard from Ranfurly; and Brian James Miller, from Mosgiel.
By Diane Brown
23 November 2007
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Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
