January 15, 2008
Scotland

Turbine fall is not an ill wind

A large domestic wind turbine which has featured on the skyline above Baldinnie in Fife for many years has collapsed in the storms that swept the country last Wednesday.

The turbine, standing around 10 metres high, was located on a hilltop at Bruntshiels, which is within a few fields of the controversial wind farm application site at Gathercauld where EnergieKontor wants to erect five 80-metre turbines.

The owner of the house, Mrs Laetitia Bradfield, a wind farm objector and member of the Ceres and District Environment and Amenity Protection Group, said yesterday she had been delighted to see the end of the turbine.

“This came with the house when we bought it a couple of years ago and apart from being extremely noisy, which was our principal objection to it, it didn’t produce much electricity,” she said.

“One of our jobs in the spring was to get it taken down and get rid of it, so last week’s wind did the job for us,” she said.

“No one was at the house when the turbine came down but looking at the wreckage all the holding down bolts have sheared.

“According to an engineer the fractures show clear signs of metal fatigue so it could have come down anytime.”

Mrs Bradfield said the machine had received regular maintenance, and she would be contacting the manufacturer who might wish to have a look at it before it is recycled.

“I am sure that this is an omen that our campaign against the appalling development at Gathercauld proposed by EnergieKontor will be successful.

“These things seem to be collapsing all over the place. There was the one that folded in half in Kintyre a month or so ago and very recently another fell on a road in Cumbria.”

Mrs Bradfield said she and her family had been shocked when, four months after getting the keys to their property, she learned of Energie-Kontor’s proposal for a wind farm immediately to the west of their house.

A public inquiry relating to proposals from EnergieKontor for a wind farm at Auchtermuchty is due to begin tomorrow in the town’s Victoria Hall.

The application for the Ceres site is still in the Fife Council planning process.

By Gordon Berry

The Courier

14 January 2008


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/01/15/turbine-fall-is-not-an-ill-wind/