Save Our Salcey

RWE Npower’s attempt to prevent Milton Keynes Council from setting a minimum distance that turbines can be built next to people’s homes has been decided in the High Court by Judge John Howell QC.
Of the four grounds contested by RWE Npower, which saw them try and find Milton Keynes Council’s Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) unlawful, the Council won three.

Ecotricity submitted their planning application for 15 giant turbines at Salcey Forest in April 2011. The planning application was flawed, so Milton Keynes Council wrote to Ecotricity asking them to supply more information and wildlife surveys. To date, Ecotricity have still not supplied the information, so the planning application remains in limbo for the time being.
We expect that during the early part of 2013 Ecotricity will either supply the missing information, or simply refuse to provide the Council with any more information, or further wildlife surveys. With or without the missing information, Milton Keynes Council will probably hear the planning application in mid 2013. We will let you know when we have a firm date for the planning application hearing.

MASSIVE subsidies for the onshore wind industry have again been called into question by a new study which found that the effective lifespan of turbines is much shorter than has previously been claimed.
The study – which examined the performance of wind farms in the UK and Denmark – says the economic life of onshore turbines is between 10 and 15 years, not the 20 to 25 projected by the wind industry itself and used for Government energy projections.
It says that by 10 years of age, the contribution of an average UK wind farm to meeting electricity demand has dropped by a third.

Milton Keynes Council did not bend to the legal threat made by the German energy giant RWE npower. The Council voted tonight (4th July 2012) to back local residents and officially adopt the new planning policy, which recommends that very large wind turbines should be kept 1,200 metres away from people’s homes.

RWE npower, the German energy giant, is threatening to take Milton Keynes Council to court over plans to stop big turbines being built less than 1.2km from housing.
click on the link below to see the full article

article By Rowena Mason, Political Correspondent
The Telegraph newspaper 2nd July 2012

Milton Keynes Council are proposing to update their planning rules that determine how close wind turbines can be built to houses, bridleways and footpaths.

Please attend the meeting and show your support for the new policy. It is very important that as many people as possible turn up. The meeting is on:

WEDNESDAY 4TH JULY AT 6PM

In the Council Chamber, Council Offices, Central Milton Keynes.

We still don’t know when the council will decide this planning application. Last October 2011 Milton Keynes Council ruled that Ecotricity’s planning application did not contain sufficient environmental information. (Regulation 19)
Ecotricity have now submitted some extra information but in the opinion of the SOS group this new information falls far short of the Councils Regulation 19 request.

The government has finally seen through the wind-farm scam – but why did it take them so long?

To the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from wind turbines today is: zero. Despite the regressive subsidy (pushing pensioners into fuel poverty while improving the wine cellars of grand estates), despite tearing rural communities apart, killing jobs, despoiling views, erecting pylons, felling forests, killing bats and eagles, causing industrial accidents, clogging motorways, polluting lakes in Inner Mongolia with the toxic and radioactive tailings from refining neodymium, a ton of which is in the average turbine — despite all this, the total energy generated each day by wind has yet to reach half a per cent worldwide.

The planning application for the Wind Farm at Salcey Green was due to be determined by Milton Keynes Council in October 2011, however the Council ruled that the planning application did not contain sufficient environmental information. (Regulation 19)
Ecotricity have been asked to provide the missing information and conduct further wildlife surveys.