December 13, 2007
England
England
Wind farm protest groups flew three large blimps on Tuesday to demonstrate to councillors the height and cumulative effects of turbines at three proposed wind farm sites.
Members of Berwick Borough Council’s planning committee were undertaking a site visit to the area of the Moorsyde, Toft Hill and Barmoor proposals.
It is the first time local action groups Moorsyde Action Group (MAG) and Save Our Unspoilt Landscape (SOUL) have joined forces to fly several balloons at the same time.
A spokesman for MAG said: “It is very important that our representatives visit the areas of the proposals and see for themselves the potential impacts of these proposals on communities, tourist businesses and Scheduled Ancient Monuments such as Duddo Tower and Duddo Five Stones.
“We have been heartened by the numbers of local farmers and householders who have volunteered to give of their time and money to make it possible to fly the balloons.”
A spokesman for SOUL said: “The very short warning we had of the site visit prevented us from flying the Barmoor blimp as close to the turbine sites as we would have liked, but we hope that councillors will get an idea of the scale of turbines in this unspoiled landscape.”
The action groups are opposing plans for seven 110m (360ft) turbines at Moorsyde, near West Allerdean, seven 112m (367ft) turbines at Toft Hill, near Grindon and six 110.5m (362ft) turbines between Barmoor Castle and Roughting Linn.
All three balloons will be flying again on Saturday, December 15.
Berwick Borough Council have said that they expect to decide all three applications early in the New Year.
By Ian Smith
12 December 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/12/13/wind-farm-protesters-use-blimps-to-show-scale-of-problem/