A FARMING couple must wait to hear the outcome of their High Court challenge to plans for a wind farm near their land.

Rebecca and Brian Barnes of Gilsmere Farm, Killington, claim plans for six turbines at Old Hutton would be a blight on the landscape, cause a noise nuisance, and put their three children at risk.

Deputy Judge George Bartlett QC has reserved his decision to the Barnes’ appeal for planning permission granted by a Government inspector to be over-turned.

The scheme would see six turbines, each likely to be 100 metres tall, built on a 208 hec-tare site east of Crosslands Farm, at Old Hutton.

The judge will deliver his judgment at a later date, probably in writing.

The couple, whose farm’s near-est boundary, is just 105 metres away, hope the judge will order Secretary of State for Commun-ities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, to have the matter reconsidered, after vital inform-ation on wind speeds is made available.

Inspectors granted permission for the wind farm – with various conditions – to HJ Banks & Co Ltd after South Lakeland District Council rejected the proposal, ruling that the impact on local residents from large moving structures was “close to the margin of acceptability”.

But Mr and Mrs Barnes say that the conditions cannot be enforced because they are not precise enough or reasonable.

They claim the inspector only considered their farmhouse, which would be 600 metres from the nearest turbine, rather than the whole of their land and thatt they will not be able to escape the turbines at home or at work.

They say public safety was not fully considered, regarding dangers such as shedding blades and falling ice.

They say the brochure for the proposed turbines warns staff not to stay within a 400 metre radius of it, and to make sure that children do not play near it.

Mr and Mrs Barnes – members of the Countryside Protection Consortium of South Lakes (CPCSL), a collective of commu-nity groups, parish councils and residents – also claim CPCSL was refused wind speed data from HJ Banks because it was “commercially sensitive”.

David Forsdick, for the Secretary of State, argued that there was “no unfairness” in the way the granting inspector dealt with the wind speed data issue.

He argued that Mr and Mrs Barnes’ criticism of noise conditions was not raised at the planning inquiry and constit-uted technical and factual issues which could not be resolved at the High Court. He said his client did not accept that the conditions were not enforceable.

He described other grounds of the Barnes’ claim as “unarguable”.

Jeremy Pike for HJ Banks said the inspector’s decision was law-ful, adding that many of the matters now being raised were not put to the inspector, and were “without merit”, and those raised before him had been prop-erly addressed in his decision.