Silton Wind Park application turned down

02 July 2009

Unfortunately the North Dorset district councillors voted against their own council's recommendation to approve the scheme. A number of local residents spoke against the scheme, citing impact on local amenity and health problems despite the council's own assessments to the contrary. The councillors voted unanimously to refuse the application and we await the formal committee hearing report.

This is very disappointing, but not really a surprise. It shows once again that local councils are just not capable of making these decisions. North Dorset council have taken 12 months to make a decision, which is supposed to have been made in four - and even though their own planning officers have recommended approval in a 106 page document - the councillors have not had the backbone to endorse that. Gordon Brown needs to get to grips with this, every week we hear of a new target being set or adopted for onshore wind energy - there's no chance of hitting any of them until the government ends the absurd anomaly of Wind Energy being the only energy source in the UK that gets its planning consent from local councils. Local councils like North Dorset that prove themselves time and again unfit for the job. We will now have to take this to the government for a second opinion, via an appeal - that's where the decision needs to be taken from the start, to save a lot of time and hassle and speed up our response to climate change.