May 15, 2011
England

2km buffer zone plan to shield houses

By Kirsty Buchanan, Daily and Sunday Express, www.express.co.uk 15 May 2011

A buffer zone two kilometres wide is being planned to shield homes from wind turbines.

South Cambridgeshire District Council has become the first in the country to launch a public consultation on putting distance between residents and wind farms.

Other councils are understood to be watching events in the area keenly and, if successful, the buffer zone idea could spread across the country.

It threatens to torpedo plans for a major expansion of onshore wind farms planned by the Coalition, which could see 11,000 more turbines erected by 2020.

Under the South Cambs scheme plans for wind farms closer than two kilometres to homes would only be considered if the applicant could prove villagers would be protected from “disturbance and visual impact”.

Applicants would have to demonstrate wind farms would not be damaging, rather than residents having to prove they would be.

The proposal was drawn up by Conservative councillors but was opposed by Lib Dems who warned it would effectively stop wind farms being erected in the district because there was no site without a home in a radius of two kilometres.

And the move comes as MPs called for more wind farms to be built on land and fewer off shore.

In a report last week the Climate Change Select Committee called on the Government to scale back plans to build thousands of turbines off the coast of Britain, favouring inland sites.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/05/15/2km-buffer-zone-plan-to-shield-houses/