Wenhaston wind turbines rejected

PLANS to build a 65 metre-high wind turbine at a farm close to a village near Halesworth have been rejected by a parish council.

More than 100 people from Wenhaston attended a public meeting on Wednesday to voice their “over-whelming” rejection to the proposal.

A planning application has been lodged with Suffolk Coastal District Council for a turbine – reckoned to be able to generate 800,000kw of power a year – at Church Farm, in Bramfield Road.

Speaking after the meeting, parish council chairman Bernard Orme said the people had spoken and had made it clear they did not want a turbine.

“It was close vote from the council’s point of view,” he said. “Three for it, including me, three abstentions and four against it.

“However, the message from the public was quite different: certainly those that came to the meeting, who said it would be detrimental to tourism and harm birdlife, were overwhelmingly against it.

“It is an emotive issue. Personally, I think it is in the eye of the beholder and many do not see them as a terrible eyesore on the landscape.”

The application was submitted by Roger Desborough in December, but the item missed the deadline to be put in the Wenhaston with Mells Parish Council newsletter.

The parish council decided to hold the extra public meeting because of the amount of interest shown in the issue by locals at a meeting on January 9.

Mr Orme said: “I understand the feelings against the proposal, but as a society we clearly need to rethink our attitude to renewable energy sources. The government is saying it wants 20pc of our energy to come from renewable sources by 2020, but I cannot see how this will happen at the moment.”

A final decision on the application will be taken by the district council on Tuesday, March 8.