Following the sitting of Harborough District Councils Special Planning Meeting on the evening of 26th January, Energy4All expressed its disappointment over the reasons for declining the application to build a 3 turbine wind farm outside Lubenham. Energy4All committed, 18 months ago, to develop a scheme that was of appropriate scale for the site, technically sound, operating to all environmental and planning guidelines and delivering significant renewable energy benefits to the area.
The report from the Planning Officer detailed a number reasons for recommending a decline. These included an as yet unadopted plan to build 1000 homes to the west of Harborough instead. Energy4All pointed out that this was brought up as a new item just 1 day before the publication of the report, was itself an unadopted plan, and may well prove to be locally contentious. Three remaining grounds for refusal focussed on the conservation areas of Market Harborough, Lubenham and parts of the Grand Union Canal. Whilst refuting totally any outstanding issues over the Grand Union Canal, Energy4All argued that a sense of balance was required and the social, economic and environmental benefits of their plan had not been properly weighed against what has been demonstrated to be a relatively limited visual impact.
Said John Malone, Development Director for Energy4All: We and our many supporters are obviously disappointed not to have won approval at the first attempt particularly as we felt objections were already addressed, or were for reasons that were as yet unapproved, such as the possible building of 1000 new homes. We, together with the Council, also seem to have been the victim of a dirty tricks campaign the Council has received many letters of objection to our proposals purporting to be from individuals, who when contacted by the council were concerned to state that they had sent no such letter. We understand that the police are looking into this, and suggest it is symptomatic of a range of false allegations and myths perpetrated by a small number of protesters.
Meanwhile, the problems of climate change and energy security face us at every level internationally, nationally and locally. This plan is for the equivalent of 35% of local homes to be powered by clean energy, with a scheme owned and operated by a like-minded community co-operative. Energy4All has helped 7 other communities across the country realise this ambition, and we would still like to achieve the same in this community. We will be considering an appeal.
