November 9, 2014
Wales

Concerns over plans for giant wind turbines

Carmarthen Journal | November 05, 2014 | www.carmarthenjournal.co.uk

Protesters against large wind farms are concerned about the number of turbines that could be approved in Carmarthenshire.

Areas being earmarked for wind turbines are the east and north-east of the Brechfa Forest which will affect the officially-designated Special Landscape Area on and around Mynydd Pencarreg.

The Brechfa Forest area, designated for wind farms by the Welsh Government, could also be extended. Applications have been sent in to build turbines in Brechfa as big as 100 metres tall and turbines as big as 86.5m near Rhydcymerau, 86.5m 5km east of Rhydcymerau, and two 100m turbines just north of Rhydycymerau.

Carmarthenshire Council released figures last month stating that more than 330 wind turbines had been applied for in the county since 1996, and only 47 have been refused, including 21 on the Bryn Llywelyn wind farm proposal.

The protesters’ group labelled Vast, which stands for Villages Against Supersize Turbines because they only oppose the giant turbines, states that “they are completely out-of-scale with the countryside”.

Caroline Evans, a member of Vast, said: “The giant wind turbines would turn this area into a wind farm landscape.

“We are deeply concerned that the wind farms boundary is being blurred and that wind farms are being created piecemeal across different swathes of the county.

“The area designated for wind farms was chosen on the basis that people didn’t live there. But now, village communities are being ringed by turbine applications.”

German wind energy company, Energiekontor is hoping to build two 100 metre high turbines in the Pencarreg area.

Carmarthenshire Council director of regeneration Dave Gilbert said last month at a full county council meeting that there could be a cumulative effect of smaller turbine applications which needed to be recognised in the future.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2014/11/09/concerns-over-plans-for-giant-wind-turbines/