August 15, 2010
England

Victory for turbine fight residents

Northumberland Gazette, www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk 15 August 2010

Controversial plans to build eight, 115-metre wind turbines at West Ancroft have been withdrawn – to the delight of residents.

But there are fears that E.ON UK – the company that was behind the bid – is staging a strategic withdrawal before resubmitting the scheme with fewer turbines.

The plug was pulled on the West Ancroft plans last week and follows the refusal earlier this year of a project to build seven 110m-high turbines at nearby Moorsyde following a public inquiry in 2009.

Ian Corsie, chairman of West Ancroft Community Action (WACA), the response group representing local communities, said: “It has been hugely stressful.

“The Moorsyde scheme had already been blighting everybody’s lives for over four years when E.ON applied for eight even larger turbines on the neighbouring West Ancroft site in April last year.

“E.ON have taken a long time to recognise the blindingly obvious – their scheme contravenes local, regional and national planning guidance and did not stand a chance of getting planning approval after the Planning Inspector’s findings on Moorsyde.”

But it is now feared that there will be a long period of uncertainty over whether E.ON will resubmit a revised application.

“There has to be an end to this,” said Mr Corsie.

“This area is being blighted by speculative wind farm developers.

“They are killing investment in the area and blighting people’s lives.”

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/08/15/victory-for-turbine-fight-residents/