February 19, 2015
England

Call to say ‘enough is enough’ to single turbine applications in Cumbria

North-West Evening Mail | 19 February 2015 | www.nwemail.co.uk

A new 61-metre-high wind turbine is to be built on a landfill site after planning chiefs gave the scheme the go-ahead.

However, some councillors spoke out against the growing number of turbines being built in Barrow and across Cumbria.

Cumbria County Council’s development control and regulation committee yesterday approved the plan for the turbine to go on Bennett Bank Landfill Site, between Dalton and Barrow.

The original application from FCC Environment Ltd had been for a 75-metre-high windmill, but the firm came back with a scaled-down version.

Councillor Henry Wormstrup told the meeting in County Hall, Kendal: “When are we, as a planning committee, going to say ‘enough is enough’? All we are seeing are these developments on an individual basis – and we are seeing more and more and more.”

Committee chairman, Councillor Alan Clark, said: “I’m not sure we can say enough is enough, that’s not good enough.

“I sympathise with what you’re saying, but this is a planning committee and we can’t be either for or against (a particular form of development in general). “Perhaps within certain circumstances, but we can open the council up to a lot of expense if we go down that line. But I do sympathise.”

Construction of the turbine will take around four months. It will generate enough electricity to power around 285 homes a year for 25 years, before it is decommissioned.

Concerns were raised by the National Trust over impact on the landscape, but the meeting heard the turbine would be very hard to see from Sandscale Haws nature reserve.

Councillor Roger Bingham raised concerns over the size of the “enormous” 25-metre by five-metre concrete plinth. He added: “These turbines really can be an eyesore on many occasions.”

Councillor Bill McEwan, who represents Ormsgill on the council, said: “It borders my patch and I accept the reduction in height. I have no objections.”

Councillor Ernie Wilson, who represents Dalton South, also had no objections.

Councillor Hilary Carrick, who represents Penrith North, said: “I’m going to say something that is entirely mischievous and intended to fuel the anxiety that people think ‘you get one, then you get more’.

“In the report it says: ‘The turbine would sit on a foundation which would be designed to reflect the ground conditions on which they would be constructed.”

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2015/02/19/call-to-say-enough-is-enough-to-single-turbine-applications-in-cumbria/