Energy giant invites public to see Lune Valley windfarm plans (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Energy giant invites public to see Lune Valley windfarm plans

9:30am Saturday 6th February 2010 in

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Residents living near Kirkby Lonsdale will have the opportunity next week to meet with E.ON representatives to discuss its plans for a wind farm in the area.

The proposed wind farm at Longfield Farm could see the construction of up to nine turbines with a generation capacity of between 18MW and 27MW, or large enough to produce renewable electricity for around 9,000 homes There will be a public exhibition at Hutton Roof Village Hall on Tuesday (February 9) from 1pm to 8pm and the following day at Whittington Village Hall at the same time.

Nick Taylor, E.ON’s project developer for the site, said: “This is a great opportunity for local people to share their views with us and to find out more about our plans.

“I’d urge anyone in the local area to come along, take a look at our proposal and chat to the team.”

Last Monday night more than 100 people packed into Whittington Village Hall to hear about energy giant E.ON’s proposals to build the nine 110-metre high turbines.

Campaign group Landscape First, which was set up 18 months ago when members foresaw that the land had potential for wind farm development, told the meeting that if anyone was opposed to the plans, it was important to put forward their objections.

“We need to prove we’ve got a high amount of support from people who live close to it,” said Phil Dale, a member of the campaign group. “When the time comes people need to object.”

Mr Dale said that Landscape First was not against renewable energy or wind farm development, but believed that placing a wind farm in what they saw as a high value landscape was ‘entirely wrong’.

“Lunesdale is an important landscape and we should be protecting that,” he said.

The rejection of the Sillfield wind farm near Gatebeck gave the campaign group hope, said Mr Dale, because many of the reasons against the plans were similar to those concerned with the Longfield Tarn site.

He said the wind farm would not only damage the value of the landscape but would be ‘detrimental’ to those who would live nearby in terms of noise and flicker and would impact on the local economy.