January 24, 2008
England
England
Villagers look like winning the first round of what is their third battle against the same plans to build a £3million wind farm on a South Hams beauty spot.
County council planners will be looking at rejecting the wind turbine scheme when they meet today, just as they did with a previous scheme to build the three, 100-metre-high turbines on the site near Kingsbridge.
But village campaigners will still have to wait to see what South Hams planners say about the highly controversial scheme later this year.
And they are still facing a local planning inquiry battle over one of the previous turbine schemes which was thrown out last year after the power company appealed against that decision.
Campaigners opposed to the huge turbines being built on Beech Farm, near the villages of Goveton and East Allington, have now been battling the scheme for more than three years.
An application by Npower was put forward three years ago and then withdrawn. A second application for the same site by the Helston-based Cornwall Light and Power Company was turned down by the county council and South Hams planners last April, which the power company has appealed against.
In the meantime the company has put in another application for the three turbines on slightly different sites on the same farm.
The campaigners claim the huge turbines are so high they will be an eyesore which will be visible out to sea in Start Bay and ruin what is an area of great landscape value on the edge of an area of outstanding natural beauty.
The report due to go before the county council development control committee also warns the turbines would harm the character of the area and recommends it would be contrary to county planning policy.
The report points out the only difference between the latest plan and the previous one, which was turned down, is one of the turbines has been moved 93 metres in a west south westerly direction, one has been moved 11 metres in the north west direction and the third is six metres further east.
23 January 2008
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/01/24/campaigners-face-third-battle/