Some Wind-farm Words and Phrases

The Landscape :

No matter how the land is owned or who owns it, the landscape belongs to everyone and should be their shared concern.

It is often taken for granted and a good landscape is easily ruined.

Where wind-farms are involved the landscape can actually disappear.  the extended spread of  the turbines , their size and the rotating blades ensure that even at great distances they preoccupy the mind so that everything around them becomes virtually invisible.

 

The Environmental Statement:

A document produced in support of a planning application and supplied by the developer at the instance of the planning authorities.  Intended to justify the developer’s choice of site and the product of specialist expertise it is, even so, the product of specialist expertise recruited by the developer.

 

The Landscape and Visual Assessment (LVA):

Likely, in some form or other, to be part of the Environmental Statement.  To simplify somewhat: the question to be decided concerns the landscapes of the proposal site itself as well as of the surrounding area.  An assessment is then made as to whether they will suffer a significant or not-significant impact if the wind farm is build.

If the Routh wind-farm Environmental Statement was a representative example, then LVA’s are long and the reasoning often tortuous.  The ‘facts of the case’  are presented and deliberated upon with an air of almost scientific detachment.  Nevertheless, the issue remains stubbornly subjective and the outcome still, substantially, ‘a matter of opinion’.

For the Routh LVA, the study area was wide and initially a 20 km radius ‘Zone of Visual Influence’ is considered.  From within this area 14 viewpoints were given particular consideration, of which the view west of Walkington and 14.9 km away, (adjacent to the B1230 and opposite to Hunsley House), was the furthest from the proposal site.

The view-point selected from Beverley Westwood, (another of the 14 considered), was adjudged by this LVA as likely to suffer a ‘moderate impact’ only, both with regard to the ‘Effects on Landscape’ and the ‘Effects on Visual Amenity’.  Thus, (according to the criteria of the LVA), the impact of the development, (from this  particular view-point), was considered to be ‘not significant’.

Nevertheless, according to the East Riding Mail of Thursday 25/01/07, it was precisely  ‘concerns that turbines will ruin a view from Beverley Westwood (authors italics), that led council planning officers to recommend that the plans be refused.  An ERC planning officer was quoted: “We’re concerned about the potential impact on views from Beverley Westwood with Beverley Minster in the foreground.  It would see the rotors whirling round in the background if you looked at it from the Westwood”, (sic).  When they met a few days later, the ERC Planning Committee presumably concurred - they rejected the application.

 

7.272 Kilometers (4.52 miles):

In the case of the Routh wind-farm proposal: this is the distance, between  the selected LVA viewpoint on Beverley Westwood and the nearest turbine to it.

 

“Riverland”.

An ugly word but conceptually a useful one.

An area of land with the River Hull at its heart but which is the shared central locality and asset for the number of settlements placed at its periphery and variously connected together by the four roads that define it’s perimeter: the A164, the A1035, the A165 and the B1249.

Besides the river itself there are a number of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) contained within the area: as well as water-bodies, drains and other wildlife habitat.

There are some fine landscapes, (photographs of some of which are on our website), and a rather frayed network of Public Footpath Rights of Way which provides access to them.  If Beverley Westwood and Beverley Minster are particularly important assets for the region, then “Riverland” is another.

 

7.272 Kilometers (4.52 miles):

In the case of the Rotsea proposal: this is the distance, greater in each case, than that likely between the centres of Driffield, Beeford and Leven and the nearest turbine to them.  Given the location of these settlements around it, we may assume that everywhere else in “Riverland” north of the Leven Canal, (and even the centre of Nafferton), will be at least this close to the Rotsea development.  It seems likely that, for much of this part of the “Riverland” area, views of the turbines “whirling round in the background”, will be the least obtrusive impact that the turbines make on its landscapes. Something for our ERC planning officers to consider?

 

100 meters

The blade-tip height of the turbines at Routh.  The turbines proposed for Rotsea are expected to have a blade-tip height of 120 meters.

 

Incongruity:

For the planners, in so far as there are more incongruities or discordant features in a landscape, so that landscape will seem less sensitive to future development and the impact of such development will appear less significant.

There are few features in a landscape more incongruent than a wind farm.  Once one is allowed another can come and, as the levels of incongruity rise, more follow.  Eventually, the consensus may be reached that "this is a wind-energy landscape" and its fate is sealed.

Two wind-farm proposals, (Routh and Rotsea) have threatened this area.  Perhaps one has been seen off - both of them should be.

 

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“In all things of nature there is something of the marvellous”

Aristotle