August 11, 2011
England

Planners reject bid for wind turbine

Cornish Guardian, www.thisiscornwall.co.uk 10 August 2011

A controversial bid to build a wind turbine on land between two picturesque parishes near Newquay has been refused planning permission by Cornwall Council planners.

The proposal was to site a wind turbine up to 53m high on a patch of land in Cubert that would have been most visible from properties in adjoining Crantock.

The decision to reject the application, delivered at Cornwall Council’s Central Sub Area Planning Committee last week, has been welcomed by residents and councillors in both parishes.

The turbine would have been sited 500m south of the village of Crantock in the Treago Valley that splits Crantock and Cubert parishes.

The proposed site is located in an Area of Great Landscape Value and is surrounded by an Area of Great Scientific Value, an Area of Great Historic Value, and the Kelsey Head Site of Special Scientific Interest.

At a site meeting on July 12, Crantock Parish Council raised a large balloon on the site to indicate the visual impact the turbine would have.

A council report said the turbine would be visible from the village of Crantock and from Cubert, as well as from Cubert Common to the west and a nearby campsite. The report recommended the approval of the plan because the turbine was to be located in a dip in the valley.

Seventy-five objections to the development were logged with the council on the grounds of visual impact, noise, the shadow flicker the propellers would create and potential impact on tourism from the structure itself.

Objections also came from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Cornwall Windfarm Action Alliance and the National Trust.

David Eyles, chair of Crantock parish, had been one of a number of councillors from both parishes involved in opposing the development.

Objections

He said: “This is a very good result because we’ve been working hard on this for 12 months. Objections about the visual impact were the most immediate because that is what everybody thinks about but there were plenty of people whose businesses would have been affected by the noise and the shadow flicker.

“There were a whole list of things that were wrong for this site. This is very near the coast and only 20 yards from a Site of Special Scientific Interest. If the planners allowed a wind turbine here they would open up a Pandora’s box.”

Proposers Sam Clark, Simon Allen, and Paul Evans, who work for a Truro environmental consultancy, say they wanted to help tackle climate change.

Mr Evans said: “We spent a long time thinking about the plan. A lot of people were worried about the impact on Cubert Common but Cubert Common is not going to stay the same because of climate change and we want to tackle climate change.”

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/08/11/planners-reject-bid-for-wind-turbine/