February 15, 2008
England

Fight goes on against turbine 'monstrosities'

Campaigners can claim victory for the third time running in their fight to kill off plans to build £3million of giant wind turbines near their South Hams villages, but they still haven’t won the war.

Planners have booted out the latest round of plans to build three 100m-high turbines in the middle of a South Hams beauty spot near the village of Goveton.But the campaigners, who had already seen off two other planning applications for the massive turbines on virtually the same site, are still on a war footing as they prepare to fight a planning appeal over exactly the same scheme.

They are already holding village fundraising events to collect the £30,000 they say they will need to employ a legal team to fight off the huge turbines, which have been condemned as ‘obscene monstrosities’ and which will be visible from as far as Start Bay in the east and Dartmoor in the north.

No date has yet been set for the planning appeal hearing, which was launched by the Cornwall Power and Light Company after an earlier planning application for the three turbines at Beech Farm near Goveton was turned down.

The company is expected to add an appeal against the latest refusal to that hearing.

Villagers from Goveton, Buckland tout Saints, East Allington and Churchstow have all condemned the turbine scheme they claim will wreck the countryside.

Buckland tout Saints Residents Group member Rosalind Spears said the group had already raised £8,000 towards the £30,000 they need to employ a barrister for the coming appeal.

That has included a fundraising walk around the site where it is aimed to build the turbines and a sponsored bike ride to the Kingsbridge Estuary and Dartmoor.

The district council’s development control committee heard it had received almost 400 letters objecting to the turbine scheme, which the county council has already rejected.

However Bob Morgan, development manager of the Cornwall Power and Light Company, said the scheme would go towards meeting Government targets for renewable energy.

He warned councillors: “We are all in this together. It’s not fair that the South Hams should let the rest of Devon provide the renewable input and suffer the impact.”

But that did not prevent the councillors from rejecting his company’s application as Marldon councillor Trevor Pennington declared: “These obscene monstrosities would ruin our precious landscape,” while East Prawle councillor Julian Brazil added: “This is the wrong scheme in the wrong place.”

Herald Express

15 February 2008


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/02/15/fight-goes-on-against-turbine-monstrosities/