Misterton Wind Farm


The purpose of this web page is to provide the officers, elected members, and residents of Harborough District, particularly the Ward of Misterton, with a range of information regarding wind farms. This will be done principally by links to other web pages and to documents available on the Internet.

The stimulus for this effort has been the application made by Nuon Renewables to Harborough District Council for the erection eleven wind turbines between Walcote and Swinford, mostly just north of Swinford. The application number is 08/00506/FUL, and you should quote this in any communication with HDC about the application. The author of this site is the Ward Member, and his intention is to provide as wide a range of information as possible so that all concerned in the decision making, and all likely to be affected by the outcome of this, may have a fuller understanding of the possible benefits and a better awareness of the likely effect of this application, if it is successful.

Please note that following the appeal that has now been made by Nuon for the application to be determined by the Secretary of State (via the Planning Inspectorate), I have decided to close the response gathering element of this site, and to present a report to officers of the outcome of this process.

A link to a web page is signified by '[web]' and this will open in a new window. Where there is a link to a document, the file type will be shown, e.g. '[pdf]'. These may be read online (left click) or downloaded (right click and save).

Important Open Meeting, November 19th 2008, limited to ticket holders: application details [doc]
Important Open Meeting, November 19th 2008, HDC Council offices at 6:30 pm: the agenda [doc]

Nuon Renewables, the firm planning to build a wind farm between Walcote and Swinford [web]
Proposed siting of the eleven wind turbines, as published on the Nuon website. [web]
British Wind Energy Association, the trade body of all the firms investing in wind farms [web]
Renewable Energy Foundation, an independent body. This link is to a report about noise. [web]
Sustainable Development Commission, the government’s independent watchdog for this area [web]
Industrial Wind Action Group, an American body researching data on the impact of wind farms [web]
Country Guardian, a group formed in 1991 to campaign against inappropriately sited wind farms [web]

Planning Policy Statement 7: the government's guidelines on development in the countryside [rtf]
Planning Policy Statement 22: the government's guidelines on renewable energy planning issues [rtf]

Telegraph article (30 Aug 2007) entitled 'Wind farm cash-in for renewable energy companies' [web]
Wikipedia page explaining how the government's Renewables Obligation subsidises wind farms [web]
Wind power subsidy in the UK, an informative article by Dr John Etherington on the same topic [web]

Analysis by an Amercan scientist on how well wind energy contributes to the supply of electricity [pdf]
Report entitled Wind Turbines, Noise and Health by a British doctor [pdf]
Report entitled Wind Turbines and Noise - a Review of the Current Situation dated May 2007 [pdf]
Report on Wind turbines, flicker and photosensitive epilepsy from the University of Essex [pdf]
Article from Ethos Journal entitled Power Games [web]

From www.restats.org.uk: wind farm applications, quarter to Nov 2007: 4 approved & 4 refused [pdf]

From www.ni-photos.jmcwd.com/wind-turbines.html, a wind farm in a similar rural setting    [web]

In many ways this website is a compromise between providing enough for the serious researcher to begin to get to grips with the subject, and the realisation that not all will have an unlimited amount of time, so to present them with a hundred links might be counter-productive. Some sites should be studied carefully if there is time, and will give many links to further documents and sources of information. One can find, for instance, exactly how effective the nearest wind farm to Misterton (at Finedon) is. It had one month where its Load Factor percentage was 7.7% and one where it was 46%. Load Factor is a measure of how effective a wind farm was in a given period of time compared with its potential maximum effectivenes. Some winter months can vary greatly: February 2006 at Finedon had a Load Factor of 9.7%, while for February 2007 it was 20.2%. This data is available from the Renewable Energy Foundation, via a downloadable pdf. The image chosen, with permission, as the last link gives a helpful idea of the scale of large wind turbines against trees and hedges typical of our local landscape. The type planned (2.3 MW) is 125m high at its highest point, a height well over ten times that of a typical two-storey house.

At the request of a local resident, here is a further page of links, to wind farm action groups.

This site has been produced by Councillor John Everett, giving the opportunity for local residents to inform him of their views. Readers may contact the author via his email address, or his postal address, which are both given at Harborough District Council's website: www.harborough.gov.uk. All the views expressed on these pages are entirely his own, and all the costs associated with publishing a website have been met by him. The inclusion of a link to any website does not imply that the author of this site endorses the views displayed there.

As noted above, with the matter now sub judice, I am now longer collecting responses from residents.

As promised at the Have Your Say meeting in North Kilworth on September 16th, here to download (right click and save) are the Actions and Answers which I promised to publish here. JE.