After a seven year absence, I have decided to start a blog again. In that time, a lot has happened, in particular blogs have become old hat, so I manage to be both ahead and behind the times with this one. One big change, and the one which gives me a lot of material which warrants being written about, is that I am a Councillor and have been since May 2011.
There are any number of pressing issues for local government at the moment, and no doubt I’ll write about many of them in time, but to kick off my blog I want to write about some recent planning decisions relating to wind turbines in Copeland, on the edge of the Lake District National Park.
A Tory councillor banging on about wind turbines isn’t exactly original, but the implications of some recent planning and appeal decisions in Copeland are big for anyone living in the countryside.
Objections to any planning application, almost regardless of what the application is for, can be predicted. Almost always objectors are worried that any application being granted be it for an extension to a house or a nuclear power station, will set a precedent for more in the area. There are some stock answers which planning authorities often give, particularly that ‘each application is judged on its own merit’ and therefore granting one ‘does not set a precedent for more’. Basically, when people object to planning applications on the grounds that it’ll open the floodgates for more like it, they get told that isn’t the case and to stop worrying/bothering the council. The reality though is that it’s not true, precedent is set.
This brings me on to two recent meetings of Copeland Council’s planning panel, of which I’m a member, where we were told at the meeting in July that one turbine we had rejected had been allowed on appeal and we considered new applications for two more wind turbines at the August meeting.
The first wind turbine, which was allowed on appeal, was allowed the planning inspector said because ‘there were already wind turbines in the area’, which meant that ‘the landscape could accommodate more’, already having ‘prominent tall structures’. This has direct implications for the meeting the following month in August when considered two more applications, one in an area with no existing turbines and one in an area with quite a few. The first was refused, the second allowed.
I argued against both, and my argument against the second turbine application was that basically enough is enough, and in the words of Captain Picard ‘the line must be drawn here, this far, no further’. The area in question is already inundated with wind turbines, and while one was too many, there are certainly enough of them now, so I argued that we should say so and refuse this new application to send this message. The argument for allowing it was basically the same as the appeal decision from the previous month, that the Council would lose on appeal if it refused this new wind turbine application because it was adjacent to an existing wind farm. Where does this stop though?
Are we now in the position where these turbines will spread like a mould across the countryside, one application at a time? If a wind farm is allowed, what is to stop every land owner around the site applying for one after another? How long before each farm between Moresby (the site of the allowed application) and Lamplugh (the site of the refused application) gets permission one by one for a turbine, and the original justification for refusing the Lamplugh application (that there were no tall structures in the landscape) disappears?
When can a planning authority say there are enough in that area and no more will be allowed? It seems that the stock answer to all the objectors that no application sets a precedent is completely untrue. This has major implications for the countryside and for Councils, and until the question is addressed, we can expect to see the further relentless outward march of ever more wind turbines.
No comments:
Post a Comment