November 4, 2011
England

Farm wind turbine bid blown away after vote

Yorkshire Post, www.yorkshirepost.co.uk 4 November 2011

Councillors have refused plans for a turbine on a farm on the Yorkshire Wolds.

The No to Wolds Wind Farm Group, which wants the area designated an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB), had campaigned against the plans, which were turned down six to four at a meeting at County Hall in Beverley yesterday.

The group argued that at 220ft high the turbine, which was to generate green electricity for Horsewold Farm, at Middleton on the Wolds, would “have a major detrimental impact on the Wolds Heritage Landscape”.

Middleton on the Wolds parish council had also objected, fearing it would set a precedent for more turbines.

UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Godfrey Bloom has called on the “faceless ones” in Whitehall to designate the area, which the artist David Hockney has used as a base for a series of magnificent landscapes, as an AONB.

However planning officers deemed that the turbine in question wouldn’t “significantly diminish the intrinsic character of the area.”

And Robert Norris of Renewable UK, Britain’s largest wind, wave and tidal energy association, said the country – the windiest in Europe – should make use of its resources.

Since April last year when feed-in tariffs – payments to ordinary people for the energy they produce – were introduced, East Riding Council has approved more than 50 small-scale turbines.

At the same meeting a larger 250ft high turbine at Mount Pleasant Farm, North Frodingham, was approved.

Earlier this year Hockney criticised plans to build “ugly” wind farms in the rural landscape which inspired his art.

The 74-year-old urged people to say no to plans for turbines in the undulating Wolds countryside around Bridlington, where he lives and works, saying they were “big and ugly things”.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/11/04/farm-wind-turbine-bid-blown-away-after-vote/