Application – 55 kW wind turbine, South Bofindle Farm, Mount, Warleggan
STATUS: Approved with conditions
see: decision notice (28/01/13) – officer report (28/01/13) – other documents
>> BBC NEWS: Cornwall wind turbine approved after parish decision change – Warleggan Parish Council had voted against the proposals for South Bofindle Farm in December. It changed its decision after being contacted by Cornwall Council planners… BBC News, Cornwall, 05/02/2013
proposed for both Bofindle Farm and South Bofindle Farm
from fineenergy.wordpress.com
click to see larger image
By a majority of four to three, the Planning Sub-Committee at the parish meeting of Thursday 20th December 2012 had voted not to support application PA12/10968 for “Installation of a single small-scale 55 kW wind turbine on a 36 m Monopole tubular tower (up to 47 m tip height) with 3 blades and a rotor diameter of 19.2 m and associated equipment’ at South Bofindle, Mount, Bodmin, PL30 4DU.” Full details of the discussions and decisions made are given in the minutes of the meeting.
Click the link above to find out more about this application, and to review the documents held at Cornwall County Council; note that in the documents listing some of the documents appear unlabelled, but they can still be seen by clicking on the acrobat logo on the left of each row. Comments and letters submitted to Cornwall Council can also be found there, both in favour and against, and those interested can submit their own comments by letter or through their website.
If you wish to see recent observations about this application from readers of Warleggan News, and/or to contribute your own thoughts and ideas, please go down this page until you get to the top of the ‘comments’ section.
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Application – 5 kW wind turbine, Castle Dewey, Warleggan
STATUS: Approved with conditions – erected Nov 2012; up and running
– (decision notice not available online)
A parish meeting was held at the Jubilee Hall on 4th September, where, amongst other things, the planning application was discussed for a small wind turbine at Castle Dewey, PA12/05804. See minutes for this meeting.
Amongst the arguments made in favour were its relatively small height (‘a telegraph pole and a half’), the compatibility of its output (5kW) with the needs of the farm, its ability (according to some) to ‘fit in’ with the topography of the surrounding environment, its low noise levels, its green credentials as an environmentally friendly power source, its role in helping make the farm viable, its compatibility with a culture of centuries of change and progress in the area, and, according to one, the beauty of turbines.
as had been proposed for Castle Dewey and has now been installed there
from greenreview.blogspot.co.uk
click to see larger image
Arguments against included the inappropriateness of its location deep within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and so close to historic sites (tumuli etc.), the insufficient consultation with neighbours, the proximity to some residences, the potential effects on health (both known and unknown), the spoiling of the landscape including when viewed from the road, and the fear of a precedent being set: that if this one is approved, more will surely follow.
The planning sub-committee considered the application, and voted five in favour of the application, and three against.
Background: The proposed turbine is an Evance R9000, 5kW, on a 15 metre tower. Like the turbine proposed for Bofindle (see below), it would be a three-blade turbine, but with a tower less than half the height, with blades less than half the size, and it would produce a tenth of the power output (see photos above).
Note that on the planning website, some of the documents listed appear unlabelled in the ‘associated documents’ window, but can still be viewed by clicking on the PDF logo on the left, including the top listed item, the planning application itself. It can be safely assumed, also, that the listing of it as a 5 watt turbine is also in error.
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Application – 50 kW wind turbine, Bofindle Farm, Mount, Warleggan
STATUS: PA12/05060 (Bofindle Farm) – Application refused, 15th Feb 2013
– (decision notice not available online)
A well-attended meeting was held on 7th August 2012, at which plans for the proposed turbine PA12/05060 at Bofindle Farm, near to Carne Wood, were discussed. Full minutes for this meeting are posted on Warleggan News. Below is an informal brief summary, produced earlier, which is NOT an official record:
- Statements were made, firstly on behalf of the applicant, and secondly in opposition to the proposal.
- A lively discussion followed on the various issues and factors raised.
- The following resolution was proposed, seconded and voted on by Warleggan parishioners through a show of hands – 36 voted in favour of the resolution, and 9 against:
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“This Parish Meeting strongly urges the Parish Planning Sub-Committee to recommend the rejection of the planning application for a wind turbine at Bofindle Farm, Mount. This Meeting would like the parish’s formal response to Cornwall Council – whatever that response is – to be accompanied by the following explanation:
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“The Parish Meeting of Warleggan views the application PA12/05060 as incompatible with the importance and protection afforded to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in current national and local planning policies. As these are due shortly to be superseded, we believe the application could be resubmitted at that time and that, unlike the present application, a wildlife survey is undertaken together with adequate consultation with nearby residents – carried out and recorded according to the Council’s own guidelines.”
- After further discussions, the Planning Sub-Committee then gathered to consider the application PA12/05060, and voted two in favour of the application, three against, and two abstentions.
RESEARCH:
- Review the PA12/05060 wind turbine planning application; and/or find out about other plans in the area by going to the council’s planning search page. Comments to the council on this or any planning applications can be made online, or by letter.
- Why not watch a short video showing the E-3120 turbine in action – for example, there is one produced by an installer Solar Ventus. Or read the 4-page brochure about the turbine produced by the manufacturers, Endurance Wind Power.
- Check out Cornwall Council’s renewable energy webpage, with links to maps showing where various renewable energy projects are happening in the county, along with a series of well written guidance notes, specific to Cornwall, including one looking in detail at onshore wind.
- Or just google away…
Use the ‘comments’ window below to express your views. Please be careful in how you phrase things, especially if you want to disagree with someone else’s comment. The idea of this site is to bring people together …
Comments received by email:
- From Cathy Farnworth, Monday, 6 August 2012, 11:48: Say No Leaflet and letter to the council
- A poem from Roger Farnworth, 6 August 2012, 20:19 on the subject – The Wind Farm: Elegy for a Cornish Village
I think the opinion counts more than the name, and if people feel freer to use a nickname that is fine – key thing is free speech
Chris,
If this blog is to continue as a valid reflection of local opinions then I would suggest that all contributors should be asked to sign off under their real names. Otherwise it’s a bit like shouting through someone’s letter box and then running away – although not as brave as that.
I would tend to agree – but would be interested to know how others feel?
I agree too
Yes this is a ghastly next step.
Wind turbines cause great distress to so very many because they are not built of local materials as wind mills were in the past and are thus highly visible. They draw the eye due to their constant movement.
Some people in our parish say the landscape is ‘always changing’ , but it has never changed in such a tasteless way to the benefit of so very few. Ironic too that these commentators don’t seem to know that most of Europe is giving up on subsidies due to the high cost and very low inefficiency of wind turbines. The UK is really out of step. It is worth noting that in Germany, the biggest builder of windturbines and where the government has committed to subsidizing wind turbines over their life span (20 years) wind turbines operate at full capacity for only 1,400 hours per year, on average — just over 58 days’ worth. A Danish investment company called ‘Momentum: a mind for green energy’ states on its website that only Sweden and Germany are worth considering for wind turbine investment due to the huge government subsidies still allocated – the whole page is entitled ‘the risk of investing’ because quite simply, they make no economic or environmental sense.
We should not lose sight of the fact that that the general public ends up paying a huge extra amount on their electricity bills to subsidise wind turbines. German households pay an average of 144 Euros per year extra on their bills to subsidize wind turbines, and this is likely to be 200 Euros per household next year. See Der Spiegel, 29th August, 2012 for more details. Great to join the club, hey! Remember those figures!
Those who gain hugely from our appalling naivety are the manufacturers of wind turbines – nothing ecological about them and they form a massive lobbying group. A critical environmental cost which no one ‘green’ seems to talk about in Warleggan are the huge carbon emissions from manufacturing turbines. The wind sector is now the second-biggest consumer of steel, after car makers, in Germany. At lower wind speeds you need more than 10 units of iron for a given output, compared with around two units for coal, one for gas, and half a unit for nuclear (see the respected International Policy Network http://www.policynetwork.net/environment/media/high-price-free-power 2011).
Let us not forget that someone else benefits from our higher electricity bills and despoiled landscape. The person putting up the turbine benefits from free electricity provided the turbine is working, plus are paid for having it too. Sounds jammy,
This is not to say ‘no’ to all wind turbines, but they have to be placed in carefully planned, sane locations after a lot of thought and ecological checks. They have to be part of a much wider green energy policy.
I wonder how many people are aware of this. If not you néed to get the message out there
Sent from my HTC
Wind turbines in Cornwall seem to be hitting the headlines again – see today’s BBC news item: BBC News – Council reveals wind turbine plans: A £16m plan to build a network of wind turbines on farms is announced by Cornwall Council.
I have been away recently, so have not been following the debate, but am surprised to learn of an additional planning application for another turbine in the region of Castle Dewey. There appears to be a desire to create these in the surrounding environment, but what I cannot understand is the reasoning behind these applications. Excuse me if I am not shpowing the required brain power but who actually benefits from these turbines? Is it the individual or does it feed into the national grid? Can I put in my application for a large turbine as I only have to be approved, initially, by Cardinham Parish Council, who wouldn’t be affected? I have enough land to make some money, difficult enough in these times. Can anyone assist in this matter? Would be interested in your comments.
There are birds of prey circling over the southern reaches of Bodmin Moor waiting to swoop. Wherever the prey breaks cover they can be sure there will be more to follow.
A wind turbine is to be erected, nestled within the catchment waters of the Fowey. The river gathers its tributaries on many such upland basins. A small turbine here would not be too prominent on the moors skyline. The hobby farmer is green and conscientious. He doesn’t need the money. The construction of a small wind turbine is a playful act. Harmless you may think. But these winged air feeders, breed like stick insects. The intakes form the perfect nurseries to populate the southern edge of the moor. They are surrounded by rough grazing ground (where turbine access is strictly forbidden). They only break the horizon line as you approach them. Birds won’t nest near them but the kill rate is sustainable. The sounds of the countryside are only drowned out within the river basin and the sound of coins dropping into the till are only heard by the farmer.
Since the dinosaurs died out the largest animal roaming here has been the cow. Occasionally a tractor will edge across the boggy ground. Now circular rotation entrains the eye with insistent involuntary beckon. The diameter of the sweep of the blades is bigger than Big Ben, but offers the observer only repetition without time’s meaning.
In the 1930’s house high windmill generators were needed, but now the remotest farmstead is on the grid and these new turbines are there to pay the electricity bill while the countryside and its lovers pay the cost. The subsidy is collected but there is no green energy exchange fed back into the grid because there are no feed in cables.
But now the predators are back, as hungry as T. Rex. The innocent single turbine is cloned on adjoining land wherever opportunity arises. Soon the long low levels of wilderness ecology are colonized by the vertical towers of the wind power hungry big boys. The landscape that evolved slowly over millennia is industrialized within months. After the four hundred plus current applications are processed Cornwall will never look the same again. Our nature poet Hopkins wrote – “Long live the wild and the wilderness yet”. Sing it again and this time louder than ever!
OK folks, as always it’s great to have such passionate discussion through this forum, and at the request of the two involved, the most recent comments, where passions reached new heights, have been deleted. But I think it’s useful now to stand back a bit. At last night’s meeting there were a good number of well argued points both in favour of the application and against, including some from ‘in the middle’, clearly torn on the issue. Everyone still has the right (and perhaps a responsibility?) to make their considered views known direct to Cornwall Council, whether they wish to object or support the application.
To my mind, there are a number of different dimensions that have emerged, albeit confusingly intertwined, in the discussions of the last two meetings:
1) What do we think about the national policies on renewable energy, including the feed-in tariff system? What are the relative benefits and costs (to the environment, health, carbon footprint, etc.) of the various options available to the country (e.g. turbines on land, turbines at sea, solar panels on roofs, solar panels on fields, tidal power, hydropower, nuclear power, and so on)?
2) What is our vision for the future of Bodmin Moor and/or the Parish, and should the production of renewable energy be a part of it? and if so, with what limitations? and to what extent should AONB status act as a bar to the erection of new structures (e.g. barns and/or houses and/or turbines)? One could also ask to what extent we should allow the history of change (clay-workings, tin-mining, army-training ground) to continue with e.g. production of renewable energy?
3) Should the parish planning committee support or object to a particular application for a turbine of size X in location Y, and if objecting to an application, on what basis is the objection made (as per the criteria of planning regulations and policies)?
All three dimensions are worthy of discussion, but, I would suggest, not at the same time!
I would argue that for (1) we could hold a lively debate one evening in the hall, and some of us might choose to write to our MP to press for change.
Issue (2) could be also be a topic for the above-style debate. More usefully, it could be a worthy agenda-item for a parish meeting, which might lead to a parish plan of some kind. Indeed, the parish might lay out its expectations of anyone considering putting in an application for a turbine, whether this relates to community benefit, community consultation, arranging visits to similar working turbines, or hoisting helium balloons on strings to show where the turbine is to be, and how high. The parish might invite independent experienced experts who can clarify about the health issues we hear about, or whatever, perhaps in a combined event arranged collaboratively with other parishes on the Moor. Finally, the parish might resolve to write to Cornwall Council pressing for certain policies to be revised or clarified.
It is only issue (3) that lends itself to a planning sub-committee discussion. At such discussion, for a particular turbine in a particular place, each member of the committee has a duty to consider only the planning issue. Each member of the committee is obliged to come with an open mind, to listen to the arguments put forth on both sides about this particular application, to ignore any prejudices he/she may hold about turbines as a whole, or, indeed, about the applicant’s character, and to make an objective independent decision. And although they should take into account the feelings expressed by the community at large, both those present at the meeting and those not attending, their duty is to make their decision according to all the pertinent factors, to reach a sound objective decision, with reason.
Dear Cathy,
I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Dear Andrew, good you have engaged but please note that I do not say that wind turbines make no sense. Read the mail again. I say almost the opposite. The key thing is in your particular application that it is within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and as such brings a very new feature to the environment. We have to be steadfast here because if your turbine is approved/ or if you do not withdraw the application – the ideal situation – you know as well as I do that there will be no reason whatsoever to oppose any other turbine in this parish unless one is to be a total hypocrite and support ‘friends’. You know this is true, and that the consequence will be a completely transformed parish in terms of appearance – the vast majority in the parish do not want turbines as the questionnaire survey conducted recently showed – and I tell you, the way the parish looks really really does matter. I also disagree with you on the policy issue – it is vital that Cornwall develop a sensible green energy policy as Lincolnshire has done. In my letter I was only trying to show there are alternatives – we need to think creatively and come up with others/ support others.
Also, I see that all your neighbours disagree with your application, including your next door neighbour who is clearly deeply upset. We MUST, in any community, live by the principle of ‘Do No Harm’. What could be more important? If your building of the turbine harms her quality of life then that is TOTALLY WRONG and I cannot see any justification. Why spoil someone else’s life? Your electricity bill cannot justify that! Appreciate that your turbine will stand as long as the life times of many people in our parish. The proposed turbine is far within the recommended distance from housing, is likely to affect property prices of her house and those of neighbours, inflict noise (etc, etc).
It seems to me very wrong that people may disagree with the Bofindle Turbine on the grounds of noise, property prices etc, yet agree with or not oppose the Castle Dewey one. It is very clear from the letters on the Cornwall County website that people oppose Bofindle on all the same grounds as they should oppose yours (apart from size, but this was not the only issue for anyone writing) and that the main difference is that far fewer people live your way – and perhaps there is a certain weariness setting in, which will again allow everyone with a piece of land to build turbines because it will be increasingly hard to whip up resistance just on the grounds of fatigue. I don’t think this is an overexaggerated scenario – if we are not steadfast then there will not be a view in Warleggan without a turbine and that is simply wrong for all sorts of reasons. The financial benefits accruing to a very few people should not outweigh the loss of quality of life, pleasure in the landscape, harm to tourist industries, harm to wildlife (there is really strong data on nesting distances etc and on bat populations etc which I can send you). I, as everyone in the parish I think, strongly value farm industries as you know. But it does not mean that the interest of the farm have to trump all other interests.
Thanks for your comments Cathy.
The fact that we assess planning issues in this country on a case by case basis is to my mind a strength of our system rather than a weakness. Germany is a very large country and as such is much better placed to set about zoning areas for specific development . Here in UK everything is a bit more higgledy piggedly and generally doesn’t lend itself to that approach.
This is a difficult debate because it isn’t a black and white issue.For me it is all about scale and location. Personally I would be very sad to see any large turbines anywhere between Carburrow Tor and Roughtor for example. It is arguably the most beautiful wild landscape in Cornwall . But I don’t actually object to Hanbury-Tennisons turbine at Cabilla, somehow it fits in to that more domestic agricultural countryside ( the solar farm though is another matter). I support the Bofindle turbine application as well but I think in that case it is too big, somehow out of proportion to the surrounding landscape .At Castle Dewey we’ve gone for a very small turbine – treetop height. If we thought that it would ruin the view or cause ecological or even archeological damage then we would not have considered it .
At some point in your correspondence Cathy you have said that wind turbines ‘ make no sense’. I have to disagree on that.Our proposed turbine has been estimated to generate about 13,500Kw, which is pretty close to our annual usage of electricity (On top of that of course is the feed-in tariff but ever since the Irish government tore up all their commitments after the economic crash I’ve never felt too confident in relying on the ‘extras’).