A 65-METRE-high wind turbine might go up on a village common - three years after a public inquiry threw out plans for three turbines half its size, reports Miranda Norris.

Lowick residents will meet next Wednesday to discuss their response to Gloucestershire-based Next Generation Ltd's planning application for a 213-feet-high windmill on Lowick Beacon.

The mast - two-thirds the height of Blackpool Tower and three times the height of the turbines at Kirkby Moor - would have a blade diameter of 70 metres and would dwarf the 43-metre-high turbines on Lambrigg Fell, said to be some of the largest in the UK.

"This mast is a monster, it's absolutely enormous," parish councillor Liz Vaughan told the Gazette.

"You would think that the public inquiry would have stalled this for good but, no, this is worse - and we thought the threat was over."

However, the managing director of Next Generation, Dale Vince, took a different view.

He said the company looked very closely at the site and appeal action but in the intervening three years a lot had happened.

"The Government has embraced a 22 per cent reduction target for carbon dioxide emissions and governments worldwide are taking action against global warming," said Mr Vince.

Thirteen properties lie within 1km of the site, including Riddings Cottage, which was bought as a retirement home by Maureen Kemp and Geoff Drewry, from York.

"It's the worst thing that could have happened," said Miss Drewry.

"It will be directly in our view and apparently they make quite a lot of noise.

We will still be moving to Lowick because we've already bought the cottage, but we're incensed."

In 1995 Jim and Yvonne Miller, of Hopefield House, Lowick, who own the common, applied for planning permission to build three 35-metre turbines on the same site.

Next Generation claims the rent from the windfarm would help the Millers conserve the common, which is used by one farmer for grazing and has grazing rights for 668 animals.

SLDC refused permission for the scheme and in 1997 that decision was upheld at a public inquiry.

Objections raised at the time were visual impact, cumulative impact because of the proximity to the Kirkby Moor windfarm, noise and proximity of dwellings.

This week chairman Thomas Clegg delivered flyers, urging people to attend next week's parish council meeting.

"I think it's absolutely ridiculous that they should be able to go any further with this," he said.

"The Secretary of State for the Environment turned it down and how they could then come up with another scheme, I just do not know."

Mr Dale told the Gazette there were now several 70-metre-high wind turbines sited in the UK, including one his company installed 300 metres from a Norfolk housing estate, which residents thought was "fantastic".

The "graceful, powerful" wind turbine would revolve only 12 times a minute, produce 3.5 per cent of the electricity requirements of South Lakeland and was "very much less imposing than three," he added.

SLDC planning officer Nick Hayhurst said the council was in the throes of consulting with residents and technical bodies.

He added: "It is a very large structure and will be visible from a huge number of vantage points, including areas of the National Park."