Villagers celebrate as wind turbines plan is withdrawn
Credit: Times & Star, www.timesandstar.co.uk 9 September 2010 ~~
Residents are celebrating after wind farm planners scrapped a controversial scheme to build 125-metre highturbines near Aspatria.
It comes just a week before BT’s proposals for up to four turbines at Threapland Lees were due to be considered by Allerdale council.
Tom Martin, head of BT’s partnership development for Wind for Change, said that technical issues were behind the move.
He said: “Assessments highlighted technical challenges which, when considered against the benefits of pursuing the application, have led to the decision to withdraw from this site.”
The decision comes as a relief to local people who fought a 12-month campaign against the scheme.
Families living in Threapland, Bothel and Plumbland formed the Threapland Turbine Action Group.
Group spokesman Steve Swallow said: “Immense relief sums it up.”
More than 900 letters of objection were lodged against the scheme which would have been half a mile from turbines at Bothel.
A ballot of residents in the Plumbland area was carried out by the parish council last year. It revealed that 90 per cent of householders who voted were against the proposals.
The planned turbines would have been almost as high as the London Eye.
Landscape watchdog Natural England also called for the scheme to be refused because it would have affected the Lake District National Park and the Solway Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Cumbria Tourism and Cumbria County Council joined the call for the plans to be scrapped and Allerdale’s planning officer recommended refusal.
A BT spokeswoman said there were no plans to lodge a revised scheme.
