The recent changes to guidance for planners and councillors regarding onshore wind-farms have thrown up a democratic conundrum.

As of June 18, 2015, National Planning Practice Guidance states that: “Local people have the final say on wind farm applications. Local authorities should only give permission when the impacts identified by local communities have been fully addressed and therefore has their backing.”

This must be good news for all those who object to the erection of turbines round the edges of the Lake District National Park.

But much rests on the meaning of the word ‘local’ and what if the community is evenly split in its opinion? Will the opinion of someone who lives next to the proposed wind-farm have more value than someone who lives a mile away?

Will the limited number of people who live in the countryside (where wind-farms are traditionally sited) have more clout than those, many more people, who live in the nearby towns?

The problem for councillors will no longer be to decide on whether they think a planning application is appropriate in visual or economic terms, but trying to decide what ‘local’ means.

My suspicion, and abiding hope, is that finally, after much desecration of our Cumbrian landscape it will be the residents of that landscape that can have the major say in preserving it.

Elaine Hudson

Broughton-in-Furness