April 23, 2008
Australia

Windfarm petition gains support

Over 400 residents have expressed that they do not want a wind farm near Glen Innes.

More than a month ago several Furracabad residents voiced opposition to the proposed 27-turbine Glen Innes Wind farm development on the Waterloo Range.

The residents formed a group calling themselves the Glen Innes Landscape Guardians.

The aim of the group was to provide information on wind farms and rally residents to stand opposed to the proposal.

Members of the Guardians have manned an information and petition stand out the front of Schafer’s Newsagency in Grey Street during the previous month gathering hundreds of signatures.

The stall contains an easel displaying an artist’s impression of what the valley will look like with the proposed 130m turbines along the range.

Since the opposition by these residents was expressed at Glen Innes Severn Council’s February meeting, Council has formulated a draft development control plan for wind power generation. Although these guidelines pertain to those developments that are not considered to be state significant (meaning the government, not council, is the consent authority), they are still considered to be relevant to the Glen Innes Wind farm proposal to aid the NSW Department of Planning to identify issues expressed by local residents.

The draft guidelines are currently on public exhibition at the Glen Innes Severn Learning Centre, council’s Town Hall and Church Street offices, the village post offices at Deepwater, Emmaville and Glencoe, and on Glen Innes Severn Council’s website (www.gisc.nsw.gov.au) until Tuesday May 6.

The Glen Innes Landscape Guardians are expected to address council at today’s April Council meeting.

“We will comment briefly on the guidelines but we mainly want to show council that we are not going away,” Suzanne McAlary said. “We will be lodging a written comment (to the draft control plan) before the closing date on the 6th of May.”

On Tuesday the Glen Innes Wind Power Proponent National Power’s Vice President Colin Patterson confirmed that a development application had been lodged with the NSW Department of Planning two weeks ago. It is currently undergoing an adequacy test in preparation for the public exhibition, which is expected to commence at the end of May.

Naomi Davidson