Transition Marlborough is winning its fight against Wiltshire Council’s arbitrary blanket ban on wind farms – turbines are claimed to produce the cheapest form of green energy available – across the county.
An urgent plea made by the group a month ago – and spread by Marlborough News Online – has resulted in objectors to the council’s Core Strategy responding to a consultation exercise called for by a planning inspector.
And the positive stance has been announced as the Sunday Times today highlighted the growing local council rebellion against wind turbines – six so far — in what it described as a “war against wind farms.”
While the Wiltshire consultation was open to anyone in the country to give their views, the results show a surge of positive local responses, the planning inquiry inspector having to revise his schedule and take the inquiry into the new year.
“We’re really pleased with the results – the huge volume of responses even took the planning Inspector by surprise,” Dr Sam Page, chairman of Transition Marlborough, told Marlborough News Online. “It took a couple of weeks for council officers to process them all and upload them to the Wiltshire Council website.”
“The result was a fantastic endorsement of wind power in Wiltshire – more than 600 people said they thought separation distances were unfair and not based on sound evidence. “Unlike respondents who supported Wiltshire Council’s amendment, those in favour of clean energy were spread across the length and breadth of Wiltshire.”
“The largest numbers of individual responses coming from Marlborough, Bradford-on-Avon, Salisbury, Calne, Pewsey, Chippenham and Corsham.”
“Local community groups also responded collectively to the consultation, representing thousands of local people in support of renewable energy. These included submissions from the Wiltshire Federation of WIs and the CPRE.”
The vast majority of responses favouring separation distances came from addresses within a five kilometre diameter of the county’s only proposed wind farm at West Ashton, which has yet to be submitted for planning to Tory-controlled Wiltshire Council.
The consultation also attracted attention from across the UK from over 200 individuals and groups concerned that if the amendment were to stand, it would set a dangerous planning policy precedent, which might be followed by other councils.
Dr Page added: “Transition Marlborough is very pleased that Marlborough was strongly represented in the response to this consultation and are grateful to ffinlo Costain, of the Pewsey Environmental Action Team, and to Marlborough News Online for spreading the message.”
What happens now?
“The huge number of responses has caused the planning inspector to revise his schedule, and he has told us he now expects to hold the ‘pre-hearing meeting’ in January, which suggests that the public examination won’t take place before February at the earliest,” explained Dr Page.
“We will also be passing on all our feedback from the campaign to Wiltshire councillors in due course. A Wiltshire Clean Energy Alliance Facebook page is under development in order to keep the debate going, and we will circulate details in due course.”
Meanwhile, Marlborough Transition is seeking the help of volunteers to help prepare their case for the planning inquiry hearing, in particular someone to act as co-ordinator.
Anyone interested can keep up to date through the website www.wiltshirecea.org.uk and follow the debate on Twitter at @wiltshirecea.
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