September 21, 2012
England

Water company resubmits plan for two massive wind turbines

Derby Telegraph | www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk 21 September 2012

Plans to put up two of the country’s biggest wind turbines in Spondon have been re-submitted to the city council.

Severn Trent Water wants to build the 132-metre high structures at the Derby Sewage Treatment Works in Megaloughton Lane.

Council planners recommended the original application should be turned down in May 2011 after East Midlands Airport expressed concerns about the blades creating radar problems as they rotated.

But councillors deferred a decision after they decided to give Severn Trent a chance to discuss the situation further with airport officials and also to satisfy concerns expressed by the Highways Agency over the impact on local roads.

The re-submitted application will be discussed by the city’s planning control committee on Thursday, which has been recommended to grant permission for the development.

The Highways Agency has removed its objection following agreement on a route for abnormal loads going to the site.

A proposed software system to mitigate the effects of the wind turbines on the airport’s traffic control radar has been agreed with East Midlands Airport, which will remove its objection if it is installed before the turbines become operational.

The water company wants to install the turbines, which are just two metres shorter than the height of the Wembley Arch in London, as part of a series of similar developments at 11 other sites the company owns.

They would be sited on open grassland within the existing treatment works to the east of Raynesway. Each tower structure would be 80 metres high and a total of 132 metres to the tip of the three carbon fibre blades on each one.

Electricity generated would be for the National Grid.

Three kiosks would be built on the site to service the turbines, which would have a 25-year life span, after which they would be decommissioned.

The nearest houses to the proposed turbine site are 350 metres away on Holme Lane. Thirteen responses were received to the original application – seven in support and six objecting.

Only one has been received during the most recent consultation period, which ended on August 15.

This was from a resident in Albert Crescent, Chaddesden, who expressed concerns about dangers to police and air ambulance helicopters flying over the area and surprise that the airport had withdrawn its objection.

Recommending the application be granted, the council acknowledges that there would be “environmental impacts in terms of noise, shadow flicker from the blades and visual intrusion”, but that these would not cause “significant harm to the surrounding townscape”.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/09/21/water-company-resubmits-plan-for-two-massive-wind-turbines/