July 17, 2015
England

Campaigners: Wind farm will leave ‘ugly scars’ on Dorchester landscape

Harry Hogger, Dorchester reporter | Dorset Echo | www.dorsetecho.co.uk

Campaigners fighting a proposed wind farm near Dorchester show new images depicting the impact of the turbines on the town centre ‘show the real picture’.

The No Slyer’s Lane Turbines group is campaigning against plans by Broadview Energy to erect six turbines on agricultural land near Charminster.

They claim new visualisations that depict the potential view from sites in the county town show the true impact of the scheme.

Chairman of the campaign group Ian Gosling said: “These are the images Broadview didn’t want us to see.

“Broadview have tried consistently to play down the visual impact of the turbines on Dorchester town centre.

“But these new images show the real picture.”

The visualisations were requested by West Dorset District Council as part of Broadview’s planning application submission.

They include images taken from Dorchester’s Mill Stream, the North Walk conservation area and the former prison site in the town centre.

Mr Gosling said: “This belated evidence from Broadview confirms our own expert advice that the Slyers Lane proposal, if approved, would constitute an ugly scar on the landscape of West Dorset.”

A spokesman for Broadview said that, further to submitting the planning application in October last year, the developer was asked to submit further environmental information and clarification on a range of points for the council to consider.

They added: “The submission addresses points raised in the consultee representations and covers a range of topics including heritage, landscape and visual effects, ecology and ornithology, noise and the proposed section 106 agreement.

“The requests for additional heritage visualisations within the consultee representations have been carefully considered.

“Despite Broadview’s heritage expert’s opinion is that no further visualisations are required to justify the conclusions of the assessment within the environmental statement, to ensure transparency, Broadview has elected to provide a number of additional visualisations.

“In all cases, the new visualisations confirm our existing understanding of the visual relationship between the wind farm and relevant heritage assets.

“Our assessments of Kingston Maurward, Dorchester Conservation Area and Wolfeton House remain unchanged and we continue to rely on the impact assessments in the environmental statement.”

The visualisations can be viewed with scales at http://webapps.westdorset-weymouth.gov.uk/PlanningApps/Pages/Search.aspx

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2015/07/17/campaigners-wind-farm-will-leave-ugly-scars-on-dorchester-landscape/