Shropshire stud farm's wind turbine scheme approved
A 46 metre (150ft) wind turbine will be erected in a village in the Shropshire countryside, despite opposition from local residents and councillors.
The turbine will be at Shade Oak Stud in Bagley, near Ellesmere, to help reduce the running costs of the stud farm.
Members of the North Shropshire Planning Committee approved the scheme at a meeting at Edinburgh House in Wem yesterday – but said they would look into policy rules for how many individual turbines can be erected in one area.
Cockshutt-cum-Petton Parish Council and Brian Williams, Shropshire Councillor for The Meres, objected to the scheme.
Mr Williams said: "It is up to the committee to decide when we have moved from the acceptable level of individual wind turbines. You've got to decide when enough is enough."
There are currently four wind turbines in the area but there are proposals for more. The nearest one is 1.8km away.
Richard Adams, the agent, said the applicant wanted to reduce carbon emissions and costs.
He told the meeting that the owners of the farm use 120,000kw of electricity each year, which costs up to £50,000. But he insisted that the four turbines in the area around Ellesmere are all "very much individual" and therefore there was no risk of the area becoming a wind farm.
Councillor Joyce Barrow said: "You judge the application on its own merits and the countryside around there is stunning, but I don't have a problem with this application as it is. It is far enough away from houses not to have an impact."
Applicants say the turbine, which will have a maximum height of 46 metres to the blade tip, will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 100 tonnes a year.
The nearest public access area is a footpath about 400 metres away. But Councillor Martin Bennett questioned: "Do we have to have maps with lines drawn around them as special before protecting what we have got?
"We need to consider the accumulative affect."
Councillor Williams said after the meeting that while the committee did not vote against the plans, the discussion was "extremely useful" to highlight the cumulative effect of wind turbines in the area.
"To that extent it was beneficial to ensure that the councillors will again consider how many turbines make a wind farm," he added.
