August 24, 2013
England

New route brings wind giants onto town streets

By Chris Jones | Manchester Evening News | www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Giant wagons supplying materials for a wind farm will be driven through the streets of Milnrow and Rochdale.

Energy firm Coronation Power plans to build a dozen 125m wind turbines on Crook Hill above Watergrove Reservoir in Wardle.

The company, which has already been given the go-ahead to build the wind farm, irked residents when it suggested carting parts for the turbines to the site from the M66, through Rawtenstall and along Bacup Road towards the site entrance in Shawforth.

But they have now revised the route so trucks will leave the M62 at junction 21 before travelling along Elizabethan Way, Rochdale Road and Milnrow Road.

They will then turn right onto Molesworth Street carry on straight through the Townhead junction up Whitworth Road towards Market Street and the site entrance at Land Gate in Shawforth.

Developers say coming from the south, as opposed to the north, will give the mega-trucks an easier turning into the site and will mean they won’t need to cut into the rock face at the site entrance.

That prospect had worried neighbours who feared it would cause pollution and potentially damage homes.

Coronation Power managing director Vickram Mirchandani said: “This new route was actually identified by the council using their local knowledge.

“It means we won’t have to chisel into the rock face and so avoid the issues that local people had raised.

“If we had known about this route from the south to begin with we could have gone with it from the start.”

On Tuesday Rochdale planning officers said that they had ‘no objections’ to bringing parts for the turbines through the town.

In 2006 and 2007 large sections of Scout Moor wind farm were transported through Edenfield.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/08/24/new-route-brings-wind-giants-onto-town-streets/