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Wind farm fears over ‘giant’ turbine plans
Credit: By David Coates | Lancashire Evening Press | 10 October 2012 ~~
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A pair of wind turbines the size of nine houses stacked on top of each other are planned for farmland in the Lancashire countryside.
Plans have been submitted for the turbines to go up on land at Cottams Farm on Shore Road, Hesketh Bank, near Preston, which will create a mini-commercial wind farm.
They will stand 182 feet high from the base to the tip of the propeller.
The planning expert who submitted the plans admitted the company behind them, Manning UK, was planning to pump the energy straight into the National Grid rather than use it to power a local farm.
Stephen Hartley, of Hartley Planning Development, denied the turbines would be the size found offshore or the wind farm at Scout Moor in east Lancashire.
He said: “The Scout Moor turbines stand 262 feet high, whereas these will be 182 feet which are what would be regarded as ‘medium-sized’.
“The power will be going back into the grid, this is a commercial operation.”
He said the turbines would be the biggest in West Lancashire although the same size as one at Cliffs Farm in Mawdesley, near Chorley.
The Hesketh Bank application has been submitted by Manning UK, a specialist renewable power business based in Stockton-on-Tees, on land owned by local farmers, David and Marina Sephton.
Martin Forshaw, a councillor for Hesketh-with-Becconsall on West Lancashire Council, said its planning committee would judge the application on its merits.
He said: “There is no policy on wind turbines which the council adheres to, it is a case of looking at individual applications.
“I am sure in this case, the committee will make a judgement on this application.”
In a letter of objection to the plans, Elizabeth Tyson, a member of Lancashire committee of the British Horse Society, blasted the fact the application was only accessible via a bridleway.
She said laws only allowed for turbines to be located within 200 metres of a bridleway.
Mrs Tyson said: “A rubber stamping of this proposed development is not acceptable and will be met with charges of maladministration by local persons whose property and businesses will be detrimentally affected by this proposed development on green belt land.”
In March, the council’s planning committee rejected plans for a turbine at the Walker’s crisps factory at Skelmersdale following a wave of local protest.
That application is now being appealed by applicant, PepsiCo.
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