SUMMER 2008 NEWSLETTER
Hoff Moor—another win for rational debate
A proposal for a wind farm at Hoff Moor was drawn up in 2002 and submitted to Eden District Council in 2003. The site is beyond Orton Scar on the B6260 road. Although only three turbines, they would have reared up nearly 330 feet and would have been in full view in front of the Pennines AONB as you descended the long hill to Appleby-in-Westmorland.
The Eden Planning Officer recommended refusal of the original application and it was duly turned down by the Council. However, after further environmental surveys and a delay of nearly two years it was resubmitted. This time the Officers recommended approval but after a vigorous opposition campaign (in which FELLS participated) the Council rejected it for a second time. Eventually the developer (nPower Renewables) lodged an appeal and a Public Inquiry was ordered. FELLS lodged a further written objection, emphasising the technical inadequacies of wind power technology. The Inquiry took place in Penrith in the week beginning March 10th 2008.
FELLS were represented at the start and it quickly became clear that no one was going to tackle the technical issues of wind turbine performance and carbon dioxide savings. So we quickly put together a 6-7 page Proof of Evidence which was presented by Mike Hall on the fourth day. This drew attention to the excessive claims made in the application, especially for CO2 savings. Though the nPower barrister attempted to discredit the evidence, the Inspector thanked FELLS for drawing the deficiencies to his attention. In paragraph 12 of the Decision Letter, the Inspector accepts the FELLS position. As far as we know this is the first time in a Public Inquiry that the poorer CO2 savings have been acknowledged. Though the key concerns were landscape and visual impact, there is no doubt that our evidence helped tip the balance against the wind farm.
This win was especially gratifying because many of us who attended felt it would be approved and secondly, it sterilises the whole area near Whinash and the North Howgills—possibly even the Shap locality.
The Armistead Wind Farm Proposal
Banks Developments Ltd of County Durham submitted an application to South Lakeland District Council in late March 2008, having held two village exhibitions in Old Hutton in August 2007 and February 2008. The original suggestion that it would be for 8 turbines had been scaled down to six, and the height lowered from 125 metres to 100 metres. However, this is still significantly higher than St Paul's cathedral and 100 feet higher than the Lambrigg turbines (see Figure).
The site is located to the north of the B6254 Kirkby Lonsdale to Kendal road about mid way between Barkin House and Old Hutton. It is immediately adjacent to the Barkin Lot site that was the subject of a planning application in 1998 (which was turned down) and a scoping study by Bay Wind for nine turbines in 2006 (see Newsletter No. 12).
Obviously this general area is being targeted by wind farm developers, a task made easier because the Cumbria Wind Energy Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) adopted in 2007 identified the Kendal Low Fells as having the capacity to accept a small to medium wind farm. However, all is not lost because the SPD made it clear that each application would have to be assessed on its merits and would need to meet rigid criteria for satisfying social, economic, landscape, visual and ecological constraints.
The site will be remarkably prominent as it sits on the highest point of a low ridge of land between the Lune and the Kent valleys. Because of this location it will be visible from as far away as Grange-over-Sands and Arnside Knott and will be very conspicuous from Kendal and all the local fells such as The Helm (Oxenholme), The Howgills, the Middleton, Barbon, and Casterton Fells, Hutton Roof and Farleton Fell and parts of the Lake District National Park. As is usual with such applications, the developers and their consultants have down-played the landscape and visual impacts—and just about everything else. In effect they dismiss the Kendal Low Fells as a valueless patch of land with no landscape or amenity value. Nothing could be further from the truth. They also state that there are only ‘common grassland birds’ on the site while we have detailed records of four endangered species (called Red Data Book species), namely skylark, yellowhammer, twite, and hen harrier, as well as lapwings, curlew, merlin, etc.
FELLS joined forces with Ablot (Against Barkin Lot developments) and through April and into May have run a vigorous campaign. Over 1,500 leaflets have been delivered, a poster campaign launched (though they keep getting stolen), Parish and public meetings held, and direct assistance given to the houses that will be closest to the turbines. These are between 600 and 900 metres away and may be affected by noise and light flicker. Our aim was to get at least 300-400 objection letters and we believe, thanks to all our supporters, that this is very likely to have been achieved. In addition, we believe that Friends of the Lake District (FOLD) and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority will object.
The application will be considered by SLDC at the earliest at their June planning committee meeting and they will accept letters of objection until the end of May or even mid-June. So if you have not written yet please help by penning a few word (one or two paragraphs are enough), citing Planning Application Number SL/2008/0318 and sending them or e-mailing them to;
Barry Jackson, Planning Officer, South Lakeland District Council,
Lowther Street, Kendal, LA9 4DL
E-mail: development.control@southlakeland.gov.uk
This is another very important application because if it is constructed the wind farm will dominate (and devastate) all the attractive byways that criss-cross the Kendal Low Fells, and will be inter-visible with Lambrigg and Caton Moor wind farms which will create a significant degree of cumulative impact. May we thank you in advance for your support. Visit the Ablotweb site at www.ablot.moonfruit.com
Global Warming—or is it Cooling?
There are some things in life that require a sense of humour—even though you may want to cry. One is the ongoing saga of global warming. The earth’s hottest year was 1998. Since then it has not warmed at all and has even cooled slightly in the past two years. But does this mean it is now in a cooling trend? A paper has just been published in Nature by German scientists who have found that the ocean currents in the Pacific have done a U-turn. When this happens the earth cools. They are not saying that this proves that man-made CO2 is not responsible but that there are natural cycles which can mask man’s effects. To quote, ‘... natural variations in climate may cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions".
Well would you believe it! None of the sophisticated models used by the IPCC and other climate scientists included such a factor and none predicted a 10-20 year cooling cycle. Whether man is contributing or not it just goes to show how little we know. Should we really be bankrupting the world on such a flimsy hypothesis?
WIND FARMS AND CARBON DIOXIDE SAVINGS
Intuitively it would seem logical that if enough wind farms are built then it must be possible to shut down some coal or gas fired power stations and save carbon dioxide. But that is not the case. The Government repeatedly states that they want to see 25 to 33 gigawatts of electricity generated from wind. That is about half of the UK’s total requirements. If this amount was ever achieved, it would have to have at least 33 GW of coal or gas back up. That is because there will be a few days every year when there is no wind—i.e. we would be 33GW short of national demand. Of course at the moment there exists about 10GW of ’spare’ back-up capacity which is used if a major power station breaks down. This is enough to back-up the current wind carpet without any extra. However, as the installed wind carpet grows, more and more back-up is needed. In a House of Lords Select Committee Inquiry into the EU's 20% Renewable Energy Target on Monday 17th March 2008, Mr Christopher Barton (Director of the UK Renewable Energy Strategy Project at BERR) said, 'the intermittency issue is not an insurmountable problem, albeit that surmounting the problem comes with a cost so, for example, THERE WILL NEED TO BE GREATER OVERALL GENERATING CAPACITY IN THE UK AS YOU INTRODUCE MORE INTERMITENT GENERATION.'. So there you have it. Wind power REQUIRES that further base load back up is constructed and that can only be coal or gas fired. So much for CO2 savings!
Reference: House of Lords Select Committee of the EU - Inquiry into the EU's 20% Renewable Energy Target. Monday 17th March 2009, Q.12 page 8.
The Isle of Lewis decision
After several years of hard fought battles, the Scottish Executive (SE) has finally turned down the application by AMEC and British Energy for a 186 turbine wind farm on the Lewis peatlands. FELLS have supported the islanders throughout and helped by preparing detailed peat audits to show the extent of the damage that would have been caused. Of course this does not show great wisdom on the part of the SE. They turned it down because they would have faced legal action from the UK (RSPB) and from the European Union for permitting development on a landscape with the highest level of European protection. However, Lewis is not yet out of the woods. This week a Public Inquiry starts into an application for a XX turbine wind farm on the Eisgen Estate (effectively the Lewis National Park) a home for many Sea Eagles and yet another application hovers in the wings on the Pairc Estate. Though smaller, both these are bigger than any wind farm currently being contemplated in England. One possible ray of hope might be the undersea cable which would be needed. Without the peatlands scheme, it is just possible that this would be uneconomic to build. We can but hope.
Are Photomontages accurate or misleading?
Most of you will be well aware that wind power companies produce photographs in their applications which show what the turbines would look like in the landscape—called photomontages. These are usually panoramas which show a 90 degree field of view—much wider than the human eye sees. The result of portraying the pictures this way is to flatten the landscape (and the turbines) so that they look much smaller than they will appear if built.
This has caused much controversy and Scottish Natural Heritage produced a set of guidelines in 2002 (updated in 2006) to try to overcome this problem. The result is an improvement but many companies still fail to follow the guidelines or describe correctly how to view the images (the wide photographs actually have to be curved into an arc and looked at from about 30-35cm distance)! Last year a company called Architech Animation Studios produced an interesting report called The Visual Issue: An investigation into the Techniques and Methodology used in Windfarm Computer Visualisations. This showed just how misleading the images from developers really are. Of course the average Planning Officer does not know this and believes they are representative. If only they knew just how far from the truth they are, many more windfarms would be turned down on landscape and visual impact grounds. This has been proved by its successful use in Devon. If you want to see the report it can be found and downloaded on the Internet at http://www.thevisualissue.com. Look especially at the picture on page 6 and you will be amazed. This is but another example of how the wind industry plays down an important issue in its own self-interest. They have been found out on load factors and CO2 — montages are next!
Groups that FELLS have helped
We were asked if we could publish a list of groups/wind projects in which we have been involved. Here are the main ones:
Public Inquiries where we gave evidence
Caton Moor
Hoff Moor
Whinash
Public enquiries assisted
Harestanes (Forest of Ae) near Moffat
Isle of Lewis (Barvas Moor)
3. Public addresses and/or data provision
Whitelee (Glasgow)
Scout Moor (Midlands)
Saddleworth, Midlands, (twice)
Ribblesdale (near Settle)
Middlemoor (near Alnwick)
Highlands before Pylons (Aviemore)
Armistead & Barkin Lot (Cumbria)
Barrow off-shore (Cumbria)
Browrigg Hall (Allonby)
Fleeter Wood (near Maryport)
Keekle (Cumbria west coast)
Lamonby (near Penrith)
Lochluichart (Highlands)
West Newton (Solway plain)
Tallentire Hill (Solway plain)
Cragg Lot (Arkholme, Lancs.))
Shap Renewable Energy Park , Cumbria (3 meetings)
Berrier Hill near Blencathra (four meetings)
Stribers & Elledrside (Near Grange)
Standish Cote (Barrow)
Shira (Highlands)
Eisgen Estate (Isle of Lewis)
Pairc Estate (Isle of Lewis)
Drone Hill (Scottish Borders)
Corlic Hill (Scottish Borders)
Much of the winter 2007/8 newsletter appears seperately on the Cumbria under Seige pages but below we also have Cumbria County Council Supplementary Planning update, the strange Casterton Questionnaire, and some House of Commons madness.
Cumbria Under Siege
About three years ago FELLS produced a map of Cumbria showing the location of operating wind farms and those in the scoping, planning and construction phase. Since then some successes have been recorded, most notably the defeat of the awful Whinash proposal after a long Public Inquiry. We have now updated this map and have sent out over 500 copies to councillors (Parish, Town, District and County) as well as other influential people in the county. We thank our secretary and Ann Hinchliffe for the marathon task that this was and Kyle Blue for providing the colour maps without charge to FELLS. This map and the list of sites is reproduced in back and white for our members on the centre pages of this newsletter.
As you can see the situation has, if anything worsened and we are currently seeing a flood of new applications, driven by the Government’s intention to change the Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) subsidy system. This will need new legislation and is unlikely to be introduced before April 2009. Any wind farm that is in the planning process or which has been approved before then will qualify for the old ROC subsidy while after the change they will not. Recent applications include the Armistead [map number 32] and Dalton Crag [31] wind farms in South Lakeland, Standish Cote in Barrow [29]; Keekle in Copeland [28]; Westnewton [19], Prospect & Oughterside [20], Wardhall Common [21], Tallentire Hill [22], Townhead [23] (now renamed Fleeter Wood), and Flimby [A1] in Allerdale; and Berrier Hill [39], Lazonby Fell [A2] and the Shap Renewable Energy Park [38] in Eden. Also the Government has approved the Walney Island off-shore wind farm [A3] (between 93 and 152 turbines) and Robin Rigg off-shore wind farm in the Solway [16], and the developer has appealed against the rejection of the Hoff Moor application [37] by Eden. These are the ones we know about and several councils have implied to us that there are developers ‘sniffing about’ in many other locations.
The other driver of these applications continues to be the iniquitous target set for Cumbria by the unelected NW Regional Assembly of 210 megawatts of wind generation by 2010. This is the big excuse of the developers—they are just trying to meet Regional and National targets. In reality it is a feeding frenzy for profits while the going remains favourable. Ironically Cheshire has about twice the greenhouse gas emissions of Cumbria but only has a target of 44 megawatts (see NWRA Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Study, by H Peace and I McCubbin published in August 2007 (see ). Remarkable when you consider that 45% of Cumbria is either National Park, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Heritage Coast, World Heritage Site or is under review. That is why Lakeland is being strangled by this flood of applications.
CCC Wind Energy Supplementary Planning Document
Since the last newsletter, Cumbria County Council have approved the final version of this important document. It is in the process of being adopted by each of the District Councils and will, after that, inform wind farm planning decisions within the County. The several documents and accompanying maps can be viewed or downloaded if you scroll down the page from; www.southlakeland.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=812
Casterton and Barbon Fells
Some members, especially those living in the Kirkby Lonsdale area, may be aware that a questionnaire was received by many households this autumn from a Professor Paul Dolan of Imperial College, London. It asked for quite a lot of personal details but buried in the middle were questions about attitudes to a wind farm of 20 turbines 100 metres high being built on the above fells. This caused quite a stir locally and the Civic Society (at the request of FELLS), and the Country Land & Business Association wrote for information from the instigator. The replies received suggest that there is no threat of such a wind farm. In fact the research interests of Professor Cowan are quality of life and health-related issues, subjects on which he has many publications. He is investigating the threat of land-based windfarms on quality of life and hopes to publish the results in 2009. He is seeking to compare Kirkby Lonsdale (as a control group) with Scout Moor where a wind farm of this size is now being built. This is encouraging, though the questionnaire does seem to have been an unusually clumsy attempt to obtain the information.
House of Commons madness continues
Extract from Commons Hansard , 28th November 2007
Kali Mountford (Colne Valley) (Lab) West Yorkshire: While we let the hot air settle, may I tell my right hon. Friend that wind farms are enormously popular in my constituency, with 80% of people responding to a survey saying that they think they are attractive, produce clean energy and tackle global warming. Will they have to continue to wait for the planning process to produce the wind farm that they want? Will we have to wait and listen to the windbags—[HON. MEMBERS: “Hoorah”] - or will we get a wind farm?
The Prime Minister: I hope that all parties in this House will support the development of wind turbines, both offshore and onshore. That is the only way to meet our target for renewable resources, if it is going to be as high as the European Commission proposes it to be.
[Ed. Of course wind farms make almost no contribution to tackling global warming and produce clean energy only when the wind permits it. Hardly a recipe for energy security. The above also demonstrates the insidious effect the EU is having on UK decision making].
Comment on the above from Angela Kelly (Country Guardian). ‘Yesterday a message was received from one of the most reliable, knowledgeable and authoritative voices on wind energy in the House of Lords. The dire message is that all parties are driving relentlessly for wind power and, as we feared, are not interested in whether it works or reduces CO2 emissions. They are just determined to meet the targets that have been set for renewable energy…..the only recourse left to us is to fight every single application for the ‘smaller’ wind farms under 50MW installed capacity’ [Ed. That means all of those in Cumbria—could there be a better reason for supporting what FELLS are doing]?