Clifton Campville wind turbines

The 250ft steel mast which has sprung up at Hogg’s Hill on the boundary of  Harlaston and Clifton Campville parishes has found local people asking what it’s all about.  

Well, it is a wind measuring device used to assess the suitability of the area for what could be four 400ft wind turbines.

The pre-application discussions for the ‘test’ mast itself were held between the wind power industry and Lichfield District Council several months ago.

 I knew about those early theoretical talks but an actual application was a surprise to me because I’d initially raised concerns about specific aspects of it and asked that I be kept fully informed of what was happening. Frankly that didn’t happen and what concerns me far more is that, despite the potential enormity of any final actual wind turbine application, the ‘test’ mast public consultation was only the absolute minimum required under law by the district council as planning authority.

The planning department’s answer to my criticism of that is that the ‘test’ mast application itself has no connection with what might or might not be put there in 12 months time and as such did not warrant anything other than the legal minimum as far as consultation is concerned. 

From a bureaucratic/legal point of view that may well be right but I believe a pragmatic approach would have been to think through the potential outcome and start publicising the whole thing sooner rather than later. 

Any wind turbines application is something that everybody in the local area (and beyond?) should have the opportunity to comment on formally and in my view it would have been appropriate to kick a joined up process off now. So often, even on substantial planning applications, people don’t get to hear of them until after it’s too late and miss the time to have their say. 

So this is really a ‘heads up’ from me for residents to keep an eye on what’s going on around this. It’s possible to register with the district council to be kept updated on this specific issue and I recommend interested parties do just that.

It’s actually a local council planning matter not a County issue and so I only have  influence  with regards to it. And because Councillor Phil Bennion is involved with the wind turbine proposals and ’test’ mast application he won’t be able to represent local people on it at the district council. That makes it all the more important that residents are fully aware of what is happening and I’ll be working with Councillor Ellen Perkins, the other district councillor for Mease and Tame, to make sure local views are paramount… positive or negative.

The whole wind turbine issue is a difficult one. There are so many different aspects to it. It is right that we should be looking for more renewable energy, particularly in relation to energy security for our country. In the future we have to be more self sufficient.

But I’m very conscious of all the varying views about the efficiency of wind power and, more particularly, inland windturbines as opposed to offshore.  That aside, the final application is something which would change the skyline dramatically in the immediate area. At 400ft high the wind turbines would dwarf St Andrews Church in Clifton and probably be visible from most of Lichfield and Tamworth.

So, whatever the pros and cons, energy wise, local people should decide whether the ’green’ credentials of any final scheme outweigh the local environmental impact. It’s residents in the immediate area who will be directly affected and it is they who, positively or negatively must have a big input.

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