March 14, 2007
U.K.
U.K.
Renewed calls have been made for a public inquiry to determine wind farm plans in north Northumberland after the prospect of creating the country’s biggest development north of Alnwick moved a step closer.
Northumberland County Council this week backed proposals to build ten turbines at Wandylaw Moor, next to the planned 18-turbine development at Middlemoor.
RidgeWind Ltd’s Wandylaw application is to be decided by Berwick Borough Council while a public inquiry is to be held for Middlemoor after Alnwick District Council voted to object.
The county council’s planning committee had also back the Middlemoor bid.
After the meeting, Coun John Taylor said: “All applications should come together at a public inquiry to test the policies that are supporting these developments that are effectively conflicting existing policies.
“The impact of both applications, if they are agreed, would produce the biggest wind farm in England and that would have a huge impact on the landscape.”
MP Alan Beith first called for a single public inquiry in September 2005.
This week, he said: “There should be a public inquiry to look at all of them together to assess cumulative impact.”
Opponent Rob Thorp, of Charlton Hall, said: “It is the piece meal of doing it. For a development as big as this to be developer-led and determined by different authorities on either side of a fence on a hill is not an acceptable way forward, it’s totally crass. Wind farm policies in Northumberland are out of hand.”
13 March 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/03/14/new-calls-for-wind-farm-inquiry/