Wind farms - eye catching or eyesore?

The cosy warm coach is about two-thirds full of people keen enough to see a wind farm to give up their Saturday morning and brave the bitterly cold outdoors.

After about half an hour of travelling, someone says, “Look, you can see them”, and everyone’s attention turns to the right of the coach, where in the distance we can see, one after another, four slim turbines slowly turning in the bright winter sunshine.

To me they appear smart and elegant and actually fit in well with the green and pleasant land that they sit on, rather than detract from it.

But, as I am only too well aware, this opinion is not shared by everyone.

Low Spinney’s four turbines are on a working farm next to the M1 and close to the villages of Ashby Magna, Gilmorton and Dunton Bassett.

An air of excitement fills the coach as we cross the motorway and drive up to the farm entrance, where we are finally allowed to step off and walk close up to the 125m-tall turbines.

So what do we hear?

From a 400m distance to the closest turbine, sheep baaa-ing. And the drone of the motorway. But, try as I do, I cannot hear anything that may resemble a turbine blade swooshing, although swooshing it clearly is.

We venture onwards towards one of the turbines, the hubs of which are 70m tall and blades are 45m long - the same size as those proposed for the Starbold site.

You really have to stand next to the turbine to hear it, and even then, the sound of the motorway seems more prominent. Admittedly, it would probably be noiser on a windier day, but it is surprising just how quiet it is.

Even when standing next to the turbine, I find its simple design means it is not ugly to my eye. It is in fact quite mesmerising and soothing to watch the blades turning round and round, with the other turbines doing the same in the background.

Lisa Ross, Broadview’s community relations manager, tells me that there was opposition to this wind farm as there is to the Starbold proposal, and in fact the planning consent for the site was gained through appeal after being turned down by the local planning authority.

But she says: “We held an open day when the farm was ready to be up and running and that was a really rewarding experience for us because most of the people there were saying that they don’t know why they had been opposed.

“People have since even told us that when they are driving towards their village and they see the turbines in the distance, they feel they are home. That’s really nice.

“Most wind farm applications face the same kind of opposition. It’s understandable that people will have concerns.”

Lisa visited the schools in the area to talk to the children about the wind farm and held a competition for pupils to give the turbines a name each. So it was Gilly, Wurzel, Wizzer and Spinney before whom we stood on Saturday.

Those children were then invited to the open day to cut the ribbons to ‘open’ each turbine.

But what about the community at large? Broadview is providing the three surrounding parish councils with an annual £15,400 community fund between them to spend as they wish. Are they happy?

According to Paul Dewes, who lives on Low Spinney farm - which is run by his brother - apparently they are.

He says: “Several people made complaints about not wanting it here because they thought it would spoil the landscape, but since it has been here, everybody has been happy.

“It’s just like building motorways and electric pylons - it’s evolution. We have to move forward.

“People were expecting a lot of noise but there is almost none.

“The only problem we have found is in the winter, we get flicker from the blades.”

Broadview says the wind farm, which was built in just under a year, has exceeded its expectations in energy production, having, between October and January, produced 11,715MW of electricity, compared to a target generation of 8,859MW.

So what do our south Warwickshire visitors think of the whole experience?

Brenda Parsons, of Bishops Itchington, says: “They are ugly. Compared to where we are, this farm is a completely different type of area.

“There are no hills here. Where we are, it’s picturesque, whereas this place is not.

“I am definitely still against the idea because it’s going to ruin our area. You will see them from everywhere.

“If there was going to be a real benefit to the people who live around the wind farm, it would not be so bad, but this community fund won’t mean much unless you have children.”

Richard Hamburger, a Conservative councillor on Stratford District Council who represents Harbury, says: “There is a shock to the eye.

“If, at the end of the day, they produce the electricity that is promised, they must be considered.

“In fairness to Broadview, these turbines are vast but the site is tidy and it looks efficient.

“It may be that the future generations of wind turbines will be less obtrusive and no longer dominate the countryside.

“At that point the Starbold site may come into its own and Warwickshire residents would welcome the opportunity to embrace the technology.

“But not yet.”

Conversely Harbury resident Chris Burnham says: “I like wind turbines. I like the way they look and apart from anything else, it makes people conscious that we need to do more in the way of producing renewable energy.

“I can’t hear anything. The main background noise is the motorway.

“But I need to understand the economics better.”

The day after this trip to Low Spinney, the national newspapers report that more than 100 Conservative MPs have written to the Prime Minister to urge him to cut subsidies for wind turbines. Not only this, but they also want planning rules changed to make it easier for people living near proposed sites to object to their construction.

There are currently 309 onshore wind farms in the UK, with another 252 projects having gained consent.

Broadview, which came into existence in 2003, has, as well as Low Spinney, one other working wind farm at the Hill of Fiddes in Aberdeenshire. Another two have consent, while two more are going through the planning process and another two, including Starbold, are at the pre-planning stage.

The firm submited its planning application for the Starbold wind farm to Stratford District Council this week.

Should it be approved, the company says the scheme could be constructed and operational within 12 months, with the potential to generate enough electricity to meet the annual needs of 4,788 households within the region.

To view and comment on the application visit www.stratford.gov.uk/planning