Turbine noise nuisance highlighted
Campaigners fighting plans for a substantial windfarm in the countryside near Ceres have highlighted a landmark legal case in England during which it was acknowledged that house prices could be affected by noise nuisance from turbines.
Yesterday Graham Lang, of Ceres and District Environment and Amenity Protection Group, said that the case involved a couple from Lincolnshire, one of whom had travelled to Auchtermuchty last year to speak to campaigners as the debate raged over the firm EnergieKontor and a site at Rossie.
Eventually EnergieKontor lost its Auchtermuchty case following a planning appeal public inquiry, and its application for the site near Ceres is due to be considered by councillors later this year.
The English case involved farmer Julian Davis and his wife Jane, whose home is close to a turbine at a windfarm at Deeping St Nicholas, and who are now to have their council tax reduced.
The judgement by the Lincolnshire Valuation Tribunal said it was apparent from the evidence submitted that the construction of the wind farm 930 metres away from the appeal dwelling had a significant detrimental effect on the appellants’ quiet enjoyment of their property.
“The tribunal found that the nuisance caused by the wind farm was real and not imagined and it would have an effect on the sale price of the appeal dwelling” said the judgement.
Now estate agents have acknowledged that the house, worth £170,000 before the wind farm was built in 2006, is now so severely blighted that no one is likely buy it.
Mr Lang said that the ruling is effectively an official admission that wind farms have a negative effect on house prices, and he said that the “victims” have had to rent a house five miles away where they go to sleep.
“It means many families in Scotland living in the shadow of giant turbines could see thousands wiped off the value of their homes as the Government pushes ahead with plans to build thousands more onshore wind turbines over the next decade to meet ambitious green targets.
“Jane Davis came up in September last year and gave a moving presentation in Auchtermuchty village hall on the subject of the intrusive, damaging and unpredictable noise from wind turbines.
“Since then she has been continuing in her own campaign and supporting others in the quest to have a safe buffer zone between wind turbines and dwellings.
“Scottish Planning Policy 6 sets out a distance of two kilometres from a village, but ignores the substantial number of dwellings that could be in that zone but not in a village.
“The effect on property prices is obvious and people should not be selectively economically disadvantaged in this way. There are about 30 properties within one kilometre of the EnergieKontor site near Ceres” said Mr Lang.
Gordon Berry
The Courier
1 August 2008
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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