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Blow for wind farm proposals
Plans for a controversial wind farm near Pontefract have been slammed by a Wakefield Council consultant.
The news has come as a massive boost to local pressure groups fighting a dogged campaign to see off the plans by developers Banks Developments.
That is the same company planning a wind farm on the outskirts of Leeds in the Hook Moor area near Micklefield, where residents have been similarly outraged.
Campaigners in Pontefract claim the wind masts are too close to local homes, will ruin their peaceful community and drive down house prices.
Members of the Pontefract Wind Farm Action Group (PWAG) met members of Wakefield Council’s planning department recently to put forward their own objections ahead of the planning application for the wind farms being decided.
Since then the Landscape Architect working for Wakefield Council has drafted his own response to the plans.
A summary released by PWAG reads: “The turbines are close to residential dwellings. Their height results in them being visible over a relatively large area and the impact on the landscape character of Went Edge will be severe.
“Their design is unsympathetic, obtrusive and totally out of character in the location that is proposed and will destroy the historic landscape. The proposed site is Green Belt and their scale and appearance will not blend in with the rural landscape. The landscape of the area would be irreparably damaged.”
The response will come as a welcome relief for PWAG members after a government inspector recently overturned a council decision to block a wind-monitoring mast.
The Wakefield Land Architect’s comments will now be used to inform the local council’s planning decision for the actual wind farm, which will take the form of up to six towering turbines as high as Big Ben.
By Stuart Robinson
16 February 2008
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