Stop Linton Wind Farm Action Group. Will I be affected.

A lot of responses from people when a wind farm proposal comes to their neighbourhood is "well we won’t be affected". If only that were true! Unfortunately because the turbines to be used in this scheme are so big - up to 130m high and with 45m blades - their impact will be spread over a huge area.

Visual Impact

In terms of visual impact at a recent Inquiry Enertrag admitted that 125m turbines would have a significant impact on visual amenity up to 10km. This doesn’t mean that you will just be able to see them, they will be visible up to 30km away, but that they will alter the view. In other words for an area of over 300 square kilometres these turbines will be a significant alien presence in the countryside. Also with rotating blades they will be much more visually intrusive than static objects such as the local pylons grain silos. There is nothing that can be done to mitigate their impact they are just too big. Farmers are asked to plant trees to hide buildings but these structures are completely out of scale with any other feature in the landscape. So local residents going about their day to day business will have these turbines as a constantly revolving background to everything they do, whether enjoying a quiet evening in their gardens, walking to the shops or taking a stroll in the countryside.

Blimp Photographs

A blimp was flown at the 125m blade tip height on the 8/9/15th September. The purpose was to show people just how high these 8 turbines will be. It must be stressed that a tiny blimp, only 6m long, will give no indication of the scale or visual intrusion of 8 turbines each with 45m blades rotating in the sky. All it will do is to provide some sense of height but it is very difficult for normal people to visualise just what 125m means in terms of a vertical structure in the sky. The virtually universal reaction of people to the flying of blimps here and in other schemes is one of " I cannot believe how big they are going to be!". It is common to hear people living 2 or 3 miles away saying that they will not be affected because they will not be able to see the turbines when in reality they will be the most prominent feature in their view. Enertrag themselves should be flying blimps to enable people to understand how the surrounding area will be affected but they are loth to do this because they know what people's reactions will be.

The blimp is minute in comparison with the turbines and is difficult to see from any distance, particularly on as hazy day as when the photos were taken. Therefore in most of the pictures we have circled the blimp to show its position in the sky.

Click here to see Photographs

TV Reception

Analogue T.V reception will be degraded for up to 5km where the turbines are between the aerial and the transmitter. So given that Sandy Heath is the normal transmitter then it is likely that Linton and surrounding villages will be affected. If your aerial is pointing towards the turbines then you will be affected. When the Burton Wold Wind Farm at Kettering was constructed then over 400 houses had to have freeview boxes.

Noise

Noise will be an issue and the problem is that until the wind farm is operational noone can be sure precisely how far the impact will reach. Also people have different sensitivities to noise so what is perfectly acceptable to one person will ruin someone else’s quality of life. Look at the noise section of reasons for refusal (LINK) to learn more but the Scottish Executive - Scotland has greater experience of the effect of wind farms than any other part of the country - in 2007 issued planning guidelines for renewable energy (SPP 6) which recommended when identifying potential areas for a wind farm as big as this that the separation distance of turbines from the edges of villages should be 2km. As can be seen from the map 2km includes a lot of Linton.

House Prices

Enertrag state in their leaflet that there is no evidence showing that wind farms impact on house prices yet they somehow forget that a previous survey of the members of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors showed that 60% did say that there was a negative impact. If there is no effect then why did a judge award a purchaser of a house where the sellers did not mention a forthcoming wind farm 20% of their money back? If you talk to villagers in Boxworth you will find that houses did not sell while the threat of a wind farm was hanging over the village. Given that it can take 2 years for a planning application to progress through the planning process and an appeal, if you have to move house in that period you are likely to struggle. It is common sense that if you have a choice of living in a village with a massive wind farm nearby or one without then most people will opt for the latter. It is not rocket science!

Time Scale

Enertrag also claim that this wind farm will be temporary as it will be removed after 25 years. Putting aside the issue that 25 years is a generation for many people there is no guarantee that at the end of the 25 years there will not be another planning application to replace the existing turbines with new ones. This is already happening in Cornwall with the Delabole wind farm and surprise, surprise the new turbines are bigger!

Further Development

One of the most worrying aspects of wind farm applications is that once they are granted there is a very real prospect of the surrounding area becoming a wind farm "alley". The Burton Wold Wind Farm at Kettering has only been operational for a year yet there is already a proposal to increase the number of turbines from 10 to 17. At Swaffham, a town who were very proud of their two turbines, an eight turbine wind farm has now been built in a village just outside and a further six turbines proposed. There is now a realisation that by being supportive in the first place they are now in danger of being surrounded by wind turbines. This is logical in that developers are finding it difficult to gain permission in new locations largely due to landscape impacts. However, once the landscape character is degraded by the first wind farm then it is much easier to get permission for subsequent schemes. So there is a very real danger that either an extension of this scheme or other schemes within view may well come forward post approval. There is a considerable area of land adjacent to the scheme and spreading down towards Great Chesterford that could accommodate further turbines. If you put yourself in the shoes of the neighbouring landowners then they will be experiencing the impacts of the wind farm at close quarters without any benefits. It would seem logical for them to look to benefit from the large rents available to landowners from wind farm developers, around £200,000 per turbine over the 25 year life of a wind farm, given that if this wind farm is built then the landscape and amenity for local people would already have been damaged."

So the wind farm will have impacts on a large number of people not just in the immediate area. If you are in Saffron Walden or Sawston or even as far away as Fulbourn or Haverhill the wind farm will affect you.

So make sure you do not get yourself in the position of saying - if only I had known.

You have been warned