This montage was made by wacat, the anti-turbine campaign group. See text for links to photomontages made for the planning application
CAMPAIGNERS against the proposed wind turbine at Woodborough Park Farm will hold a public meeting in Woodborough Village Hall on Tuesday 21 June at 8pm. The group has also been making door-to-door deliveries of leaflets and pro-forma letters of objection which can be forwarded to the planning authorities.
The project has been submitted to Gedling Borough Council for planning permission, following approval by Woodborough Parish Council at its meeting on 6 June (see our report on that meeting). The campaign group against the turbine, wacat (Woodborough and Calverton Against Turbines) reports on its website that Gedling has extended the consultation period over the planning application to the end of June.
The actual planning application is for “Erection of 1 medium sized wind turbine with a generating capacity of 330kw. The turbine is 50m to hub height and has a rotor diameter of 33m giving a total ground to tip height of 66.5m. Ancillary development comprises a permanent access track and crane pad.”
Among the many documents lodged with Gedling Borough in support of the application are site location maps, specifications and drawings of the turbine, and assessments of both noise and visual impact. A number of photomontage images and a map showing where the turbine would be visible can be found in this 20-page document (PDF, 3.5Mb).
The noise assessment document observes that the existing background noise in the area is characterised by “limited local and distant road traffic, occasional aircraft flyovers and birdsong“, and provides data on the turbine manufacturer’s noise output predictions. This document concludes that: “the proposed wind turbine should not have any unacceptable noise impact on the nearest noise sensitive receptors“.
A report on the community consultation meeting held at the Colonel Frank Seely school in Calverton on 10 May 2011 can be found here.
Visibility: from green areas only the blade tips will be visible, from the blue areas the turbine nacelle and blades will be visible
Just wanted to clarify, although the group name suggests we are against all turbines, we are just against turbines in the green belt… or any development of the green belt for that matter.
Disgraceful that anybody has applied for this! You can just see on the applicant’s own map how many people will suffer. His bank account will flourish whilst everybody else gets spoilt views, health problems and wildlife killed. This should not be allowed in green belt. At least the Lindhurst ones are not in an area of natural beauty!
People need to understand his application may as well be for a 30 storey building. Being renewable energy has nothing to do with it. THE ISSUE IS DEVELOPMENT ON THE GREEN BELT AND NOT RENEWABLE ENERGY!!!
The wacat photo-montage is using an Ecotricity 2MW turbine which stands at 110m tall. Why is that when this application is for a 66.5m machine ?
The lindhurst turbines may not be in a designated area of natural beauty but one of them was built on green belt land… with no detriment to local residents or wildlife.
(This was received by email, and helps clarify the planning process – Ed)
Dear Russ
Could I advise that your latest report on the turbine campaign is a little misleading regarding the planning process, “The project has been submitted to Gedling Borough Council for planning
permission, following approval by Woodborough Parish Council”
The process works thus: all planning applications are submitted in the first instance to Gedling, who then send out consultation papers to interested parties (such as Parish Councils) asking for their “observations”. Gareth Elliott at GBC can tell you who else is being consulted. These are then gathered in and GBC come to their decision using their policies – in this case I believe national policies will be used.
Woodborough PC’s decision was to table “no objection” – had the PC voted to object, or make no observations, this would not have stopped the process.
An illustration of this process in action would be the PC’s decision last year to object to the 2 smaller turbines at Woodborough Park. As we all know, GBC made the decision to grant permission despite the PC’s objections.
Regards
Averil Marczak
Clerk to Woodborough Parish Council
Dear Mark Warrener,
The photo-montages, although only approximate, are using the correct E33 turbine.
Mark Warrener,
The photo-montages are using an Enercon E33 turbine.
Apologies if that is the case. If so the perspective is misleading as the turbine looks far too slender and too tall compared to the buildings. That’s the trouble with photo-shop images. However it’s better than the anti-Lindhurst group which used a model that scaled up to over 60m wide!
The WACAT photomontages are quite simply incorrect!
Quite apart from the ‘approximate’ scaling being just plain wrong the actual application itself included numerous professionally calculated photomontages for everyone to see… so why the need to produce incorrect ones?!
The images created for the planning application can be seen using the links provided, and so are (in that sense) in the public domain. However the artwork remains the copyright of the applicant, who declined our request for permission to reproduce them here on dumbles.co.uk. That is why we have used the image created by Wacat, the provenance of which is clearly labelled – Ed.
Sorry Ed, I wasnt trying to imply that you were at fault for the innacurate images – just expressing my disbelief that someone else has produced them when the ones within the application seem to be comprehensively and professionally produced! (as i’m sure they have to be)
Michael Ford, The images are actually to scale. The professional montages were also done from such a long distance a way in order to make the turbine look small. If you were to zoom in you would see the WACAT photo is to scale when compared with the applicants photo. The WACAT photo is viewed from much closer! I believe the applicant’s photos are misleading.
In response to Simon Crowther’s comment of 22nd June, the images provided in the planning application have been produced to a recognised methodology as per the guidelines of Scottish Natural Heritage. This is standard practice since there is no such guidance available in England. The viewpoints I believe from reading the application, were agreed with Gedling Borough Council prior to being produced. ‘Zoomed in’ viewpoints are not acceptable since this does not accurately represent the view experienced by somebody looking at the turbine. I think it also worth clarifying that the map above is a ZTV map which means ‘Zone of Theoretical Visibility’. This map shows where the turbine is theoretically visible from based on a bare ground scenario without the effects of buit or natural screening. Therefore, in the most part, for example from Calverton in particular, it is unlikely that the turbine would be visible due to the built up nature of the area. I think the use of this map in this aricle without a proper explanation is misleading.
I cannot understand the uproar at this proposal for one single turbine which is of a fairly modest scale. I assume that all the objectors live in houses with electricity? I am not sure where they think it comes from, but they must have noticed the large electricity pylons in the countryside across the UK – when these were first proposed there was similar outcry, however they are now an accepted and necessary element of the countryside landscape – it’s called progress!
A final point on the Greenbelt – its primary purpose is to prevent urban sprawl and to stop towns from merging into one another – not to stop all development within the countryside. It is highly unlikely that a single turbine of this size would conflict with these objectives.
What a lively debate. I thought I’d let everyone know about my website about wind turbines: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Woodborough-And-Calverton-For-Turbines/142951399113464
Farmers are being offered a new way to get rich – by energy speculators determined to build wind turbines on their land… One farmer has reported receiving 12 separate offers from developers to build turbines on his land … A single turbine can earn a farmer as much as £60,000 a year – far more than the average farmer’s income of just over £47,000.
Full details at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8612846/Farmers-enouraged-to-cash-in-on-the-scramble-for-wind.html
Cheers!
B.D.