May 31, 2014
England

Wind farm plan is blown away by Eric Pickles

The Scarborough News | 31 May 2014 | www.thescarboroughnews.co.uk

Campaigners have been celebrating after plans for 10 giant wind turbines on the outskirts of Scarborough were thrown out last week.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, overruled a planning inspector who recommended that the scheme should go ahead.

If it had gone ahead it would have seen 10 126 metre high wind turbines built on the Yorkshire Wolds between Malton and Scarborough at Heslerton.

Mr Pickles said that the plans ‘would introduce a highly intrusive form of development’.

He also ruled that the turbines would harm the view from the North Yorkshire Moors National Park as well as interfere with the enjoyment of heritage assets including East Heslerton church.

Mr Pickles agreed with the National Park’s director of planning that the development ‘would seriously undermine these landscape features’ because of ‘its scale, vertical emphasis, the number of turbines, their elevated siting, movement and prominence on the horizon’.

Objectors to the scheme by RWE npower included Scarborough Borough Council, the Ministry of Defence, English Heritage, Natural England, Campaign to Protect Rural England and the British Horse Society.

Local farmer and leading campaigner Paul Stephens, whose farm would have been in the shadow of the turbines, said: “As a farmer, I consider myself a custodian of the countryside and it is my duty to look after the place where I am privileged to live. My principal reason for objection for the last 4 years has been because I hated the thought that my two neighbours and the developer, wanted to build a huge wind factory in this area of High Landscape Value, purely for financial reward and without any concern for their neighbours and the enjoyment that local people and visitors get when they want to take in the beauty of this area.”

RWE Npower Renewables Ltd now has six weeks to decide whether to take the case to the High Court.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2014/05/31/wind-farm-plan-is-blown-away-by-eric-pickles/