Worcester firm Natural Energy hails ruling on wind turbines
A Worcester firm which installs small-scale wind turbines for farmers is celebrating a landmark planning decision which it hopes will bring an end to the “illogical” system in place in the Cotswolds and other rural areas.
Natural Energy decided to appeal to the Secretary of State after it had three of its applications to install single wind turbines turned down by local councils, which outlined concerns about their visual impact in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Two of the appeals were allowed on the grounds that their appearance was judged to be insignificant in the landscape, a decision Natural Energy believes will now pave the way for more farmers to install the 15-metre turbines.
Tony Carver, a partner at Natural Energy, believes the decision represents a significant step in filtering down central government policy, which is supportive of wind farm projects, to local councils who are accused by installation firms of blocking too many schemes.
He said the situation had been frustrating, with local planning authorities, wildlife organisations and the Ministry of Defence – which all get involved in the process – putting up barriers to installing renewable energy.
“On the one hand you have got the Government desperately encouraging the growth of renewable energy and trying to do their best to reform the planning situation. On the other hand you have got the local planning authorities.
“All this happens while the Government is trying to untangle things but they are not getting the support from the non-governmental people and the planning authorities.”
In the decision documents for one of the sites, the planning inspector giving the schemes the go-ahead said: “The turbine would be approximately the height of an oak tree, such that when seen within its context, I consider that it would not appear as an obtrusive feature within the landscape.”
Mr Carver said he had experienced a number of “illogical” decisions by local authorities, giving the example of a site in Cumbria which had recently been turned down.
He said: “The firm is also putting in an appeal after an application was refused for an 18-metre turbine in Cumbria on the grounds of the visual impact on an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty located 3.4 miles away.
“This is in spite of being able to see large scale onshore and offshore wind farms in every direction from the proposed turbine site.
“From three and-a-half-miles away you can’t see a turbine of our size – it’s completely illogical.”
Mr Carver, who said his mission is “to make small turbines an accepted feature on the landscape,” admitted small-scale wind turbines had come in for a bad press for being ineffective, but said this was due to them being installed in the wrong sites.
“I would be the first to say that there are far too many of these being put up in the grounds of schools and government buildings.
“There isn’t any wind around schools because you don’t build a school where it’s windy – so a lot of the bad reputation has been because people put turbines in the wrong place. But they work brilliantly on farms.
“Farmers get slated for their CO2 emissions. They need to do something about that and putting in a small turbine is going a long way to achieving that.
“We want small turbines to be an accepted feature in the landscape.”
