Published: Thursday, 11th February, 2010 8:45am

Villagers set out wind farm objections

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OPPONENTS of a proposed wind farm at Saline are stepping up their campaign ahead of the planning application coming before councillors.

Saline Community Against These Turbines (SCATT) has spelled out the widespread discontent in the area with local residents, community councils and politicians uniting to fight the plans.

The group believes that the five huge turbines will be a noise nuisance and an eyesore spoiling the beautiful landscape of the Ochils.

The application by ABO Wind for the site at Easter Muirhead Farm, 2km north west of Saline, is expected come before the South West Fife area committee on Wednesday.

SCATT has sent a letter to councillors ahead of the meeting stating, "This location has over 200 residential houses within 2km of which 19 are within 1km.

"The turbine height is 125m. The wind farm will span North Road which is used extensively by walkers, cyclists and horse riders.

"It will destroy this usage and force a close down on the riding school which caters for disadvantaged riders and that would be only 500m from the nearest turbine."

The SCATT letter goes on, "WESPG (Wind Energy Supplementary Guidance) says that 'the issue of noise outside audible frequencies is considered to have an impact on people and developers should address this in any planning application'.

"The applicant has not done this, indeed their ES (environmental statement) states, 'It was found that internal noise levels associated with aerodynamic modulation were above the threshold of audibility at some properties. While measurements indicated these were not high enough to wake occupiers of a room they could result in difficulties returning to sleep once awoken'.

"In addition the adopted draft Dunfermline and West Fife Local Plan has now extended the area of great landscape value to include the site of this application.

"BAA Airports on October 23rd 2009 have objected to this application because the turbines will generate spurious returns which would have an adverse effect on capacity for Edinburgh airport and lead to disruption of inbound traffic.

"Every local community council - Saline and Steelend, Fossoway, Dollar, Muckhart and Alloa Central; other local councils - Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire; both local MPs Willie Rennie and Gordon Banks; MSPs Jim Tolson and John Park and other local groups - Dollar Civic Trust, Friends of the Ochils, Muckhart and Glendevon Amenity Society, are all opposed to the siting of this wind farm.

"In addition to the above, 282 individual objections have been submitted of which 92 per cent are from local people.

"In response to this, ABO launched a PR campaign in Dunfermline which directly resulted in 235 letters of support. Of these only five letters (just two per cent) are from local people - many are from Dunfermline, which would be totally unaffected by this wind farm, with others from places such as Kirkcaldy, England and Austria.

"Perth and Kinross Council's submission deals significantly with the landscape impact and notes that 'the Area of Great Landscape Value which covers the Cleish Hills would be significantly impacted on through the development proposed' and 'The appeal decisions for Tillyrie and other Ochil Hills wind farms are material to the consideration of this proposal where the reporters concluded that this area had reached its capacity in terms of cumulative effects.'"

Sheila Travers, chair of SCATT, wrote to the committee,"We trust that you will give due consideration, when you come to vote, to the strength of feeling of your constituents who are deeply concerned about the impact this development would have on their lives from both a physical and visual perspective."

ABO Wind UK is a subsidiary of the German-based company ABO Wind, which has interests throughout Europe.

At the time of the PR campaign Jenny Walsh, project manager, ABO Wind UK, told the Press, "Wind farm developers tend to be criticised for not communicating widely enough, not the other way round."

Of the letters she said, "The vast majority, 75 per cent to be exact, of letters of support volunteered by locals were totally original, handwritten letters. This is also important because it helps the local council to build a representative picture of local opinion."

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