Claughton Moor. Photo: Richard Webb CC-BY-SA-2.0
A power company has submitted plans for a scaled-down windfarm after planners refused its original application.
Community Windpower had wanted to build 20 turbines on a hill in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire, but Lancaster City Council turned down the plans. The company withdrew an appeal against the decision that was to be heard in May.
Now, a new application for 13 turbines has been submitted for the site on Claughton Moor and Whit Moor, within the Bowland area of outstanding natural beauty. An existing windfarm installation on nearby Caton Moor was built 15 years ago.
The site is on common land on the northern edge of the Forest of Bowland, overlooking the Lune Valley.
Campaigners have vowed to fight the new application, saying it would be close to the proposed extension to the Lake District national park.
Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, said: “We are pleased that Community Windpower has seen sense and withdrawn this heinous application. However, in parallel with the appeal, Community Windpower has submitted a further, very similar, application for 13 turbines of the same size on the same site to which we and many others have objected.
“The public has the right to walk over the whole area, and people’s enjoyment of this lovely hillside will be destroyed by the creation of a wind factory here. Furthermore, as part of the area is registered common land, the developers will need the Environment Secretary’s consent for works on common land, or approval for a land swap.
“We urge Lancaster City Council to reject this second damaging application, and let’s hope that Community Windpower will see sense for a second time and withdraw it also,” she added.
Dr Mike Hall, chairman of Friends of Eden Lakeland & Lunesdale Scenery echoed the OSS opposition and added: “This is just one important battle in a war against continued pressure for renewable energy schemes within the Lune Valley, driven by misguided Government policy.”
The power company said the 13 turbines would have a maximum height of 126.5m (415ft), saying they would ‘typically generate 39MW of clean, locally sourced electricity’.
Community Windpower also said it would still appoint an educational ranger to work with local schools, provide funding for environmental and eco-friendly community projects, educational presentations, student bursaries and sponsorship for community events.
roworth
15 March 2011These wind power station companies are starting to take the mick. No one wants them and all they generate are profits for a few South Eastern fat cats who care nothing for the environment.
Nick
15 March 2011In the courts you can be labelled a 'vexatious litigant' and stopped from pursuing legal actions.
Speculative developers who repeatedly pursue appeals and re-applications on a site where they have already lost an application and an appeal should be labelled as vexatious planning applicants and refused any further applications within that area.
These companies are using their financial muscle - funded by very large consumer subsidies on wind power production - to intimidate both cash-strapped local planning authorities and unfunded community response groups who dare to oppose their plans.
Nick
15 March 2011'Community Windpower' (a privately owned speculative development company) are being as disingenuous as their name in claiming that this scheme would, 'typically generate 39MW of clean, locally sourced electricity'.
39MW is the headline capacity of the scheme. They would be lucky if it generated 30% of that figure and would bring no local benefits apart from a small 'community fund' payment.
What it would generate is very large profits from subsidies: over £5 million a year, just in subsidy payments, assuming a 30% load factor and using the current £48.80 average sale price for Renewable Obligation Certificates.
This subsidy is concealed in our electricity bills.
Nick
07 November 2016These southern fat cats have nout else to do other than piss up someone else's garden.