April 5, 2007
U.K.
U.K.
A bid to stop Swansea city centre becoming a high-rise hell might be extended to the surrounding countryside.
Swansea Council leaders are to discuss a new Tall Building Strategy later this week to prevent developers ruining the skyline. However, councillor Ioan Richard wants the drive to go further and says the countryside could be ruined if no plan is in place for rural locations.
The Mawr councillor is worried that huge electricity-generating wind turbines will turn out to be a bigger blight than city-centre skyscrapers. He said the planned turbines for Mynydd-y-Gwair would be more than 200 metres tall.
“These will be on top of high mountain plateaux in north Swansea’s Mawr Ward,” said Councillor Richard.
He said they would be visible from as far away as Somerset and Devon.
He added: “They may be slender structures but their immense blades will be moving when the wind blows. Their impact on visibility will be devastating – all for a tiny piddle of electrical energy yet capable of reaping massive public subsidies.”
Councillor Richard now wants Swansea Council’s cabinet members, who will discuss the Tall Building Strategy today, to look at the impact of wind turbines separately. He wants this to assess their potential impact.
He said: “Before its demise, the Wales Tourism Board commissioned a well-researched document that showed that the presence of Wind Turbines would deter 13 per cent of prospective tourists to an area affected.”
5 April 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/04/05/bid-to-stop-countryside-high-rises/