Last updated at 21:14, Thursday, 17 June 2010

Exclusion zones should be put in place to curtail wind farm development in West Cumbria, said the leader of Cumbria County Council.

Eddie Martin, who represents Dearham and Broughton, said planning laws should be weighted more towards community opinion and wants to see wind farms debated in Parliament.

Mr Martin said: “I would welcome exclusion zones on parts of the Solway coast which doesn’t have the same degree of protection afforded to the national park.

“It should extend three or four miles inland.

“Applications are almost out of control and the law needs to be swung back in favour of the local communities.

“Cumbria, particularly Allerdale, has had more than its fair share of wind turbines and there is a predisposition to rule in favour of the developers which is wrong.

“I don’t think sufficient planning weight is given to the objections. The objectors have to struggle like fury just to be heard.”

The county council has informally discussed the idea of exclusion zones.

Bill Jefferson, Allerdale councillor and chairman of both the Solway Area of Outstanding National Beauty and the Lake District National Park, added: “We want to be looking at areas of exclusion throughout the whole of Cumbria.

“We have reached saturation point visually and the proliferation of wind farms doesn’t make a lot of sense because they are in small clusters and produce very little.

“If you still believe wind farms are the answer, it makes more sense to have larger ones offshore.”

Mr Jefferson said the turning point was when npower’s plans for a windfarm at Park Head, near Silloth, were thrown out by Allerdale council but later approved on appeal by a Government planning inspector.

He said: “That was an incredible decision, one which I still can’t understand. Whatever the strength of feeling locally, at the end of the day the decision comes down to one person at a public inquiry.

“The developers say they are listening, but one of them said to me ‘We have won two out of three decisions on appeal’.

“That isn’t listening. It’s riding roughshod over people’s democratically held opinions.

“On the back of the Park Head decision, we are going to see a number of applications in the area.

“I am anxious to put a stop to this before we see the total destruction of sight lines from the fells to the Solway.”

Margaret O’Hare, member of the Tallentire Area Action Group, said: “There is a strong feeling we are reaching saturation point in West Cumbria.

“Allerdale could throw them all out but should the developers appeal it will go to Bristol which means that it goes out of our hands.”

But Jill Perry, of Bullgill, a long-term campaigner with Friends of the Earth who was a Green Party candidate at the General Election, said: “Anti-windfarm campaigners really only have one argument which could be regarded as valid - turbines do impact on the landscape.

“But we all know that climate change is going to have much more of a permanent impact as we lose our valued animals, habitats, and plants.

“It is because of climate change and its associated dangers that we need clean energy from wind and other renewable sources.

“Wind turbines have to be built where the wind resource can be tapped and that generally means coastal plains and hills.

“Given that wind farms are unlikely to be built in the Lake District, in Cumbria this means on the coastal strip, where the scenery is less highly valued.”

There are 53 commercial-scale wind turbines in Allerdale and four micro turbines.

There are three commercial scale and two micro planning applications for wind energy pending.

Allerdale council refused a planning application last week by Broadview Energy Development for three 350ft turbines at Westnewton.

First published at 19:19, Thursday, 17 June 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk