Wind Farms: again
Jonathan Lovie writes:
Following the previous report, we can report on two further potentially detrimental on-shore wind farm schemes. In both cases the local planning authority failed to comply with its statutory duty and neglected to consult The Garden History Society on the proposals.
The first scheme, near Yelvertoft in Northamptonshire, has the potential to affect views from and the setting of the Grade II landscape at Stanford Hall across the county border in Leicestershire. This scheme is to be the subject of a Planning Inquiry to which we shall submit evidence.
The second scheme is perhaps even more alarming. Four turbines proposed at the Fewcott site on the Oxfordshire-Northamptonshire border would not only have an immediate and probably devastating impact on the setting of the Grade II landscape at Aynhoe Park (recently rescued from inappropriate development proposals by a sympathetic new private owner), but would also seem to be visible in the key ‘Kentian’ vistas from the Grade I garden at Rousham. As members will no doubt recall, over the years there have been many threats to the integrity of this essential element of the internationally significant and seminal garden, including, for example, a proposed telephone mast to the east of Kent’s Grade II* Listed Eyecatcher.
Rousham, Kent’s Mill and Eyecatcher, ‘the views out are as important as those within the garden’, Mavis Batey (photo by Sarah Rutherford)
Despite these detrimental proposals, the designed landscape has survived and remains astonishingly close to Kent’s original aesthetic intention. That moving rotor blades visible above the horizon should be allowed to intrude upon this quintessential eighteenth century landscape garden and its wider rural designed landscape is surely unthinkable and must be resisted with vigour. Once again the Society will make representations to the forthcoming Public Inquiry highlighting the impact of the scheme on the setting of both Rousham and Aynhoe.
Category: Conservation |
3 Comments » 
“In both cases the local planning authority failed to comply with its statutory duty and neglected to consult The Garden History Society on the proposals”
Please will you justify this statement? Perhaps pointing me towards the list of statutory consultees, of which you are claiming to be a part of.
“The first scheme, near Yelvertoft in Northamptonshire, has the potential to affect views from and the setting of the Grade II landscape at Stamford Hall across the county border in Leicestershire”
Your arguement would hold a lot more weight if you got the name of the property correct. It is in fact called Stanford Hall. The views that you refer to are only accessible for very few days a year when the hall’s grounds are open to the public. It continues to amaze me that people regard this to be more important that the provision of clean, emission free renewable energy for ~9,000 homes.
In addition wind farms are essentially temporary stuctures, at the end of their life (25 years) they are required to be decommissioned and the land returned to how it was prior to construction. This is unless an entirely new and seperate planning application is submitted and approved to re-power the site.
When will people start to realise that climate change is likely to be the biggest problem that humanity has ever faced? Something needs to be done to combat this and organisations like the GHS need to start address the issues of onshore wind farms with a rational mind rather than pre-determined NIMBYISM.
Thank you for your comment. I have now corrected the accidental mis-spelling of Stanford Hall (it is very easy to mis-spell on the web, isn’t it?).
As regards our statutory status may I refer you to our Conservation Team’s statement on http://www.gardenhistorysociety.org/conservation/our-work-in-england/
Having established the need for a listing system for parks and gardens back in the 1960s the Garden History Society later acquired its role in the planning system to comment on matters affecting all parks, gardens and similar designed landscapes in the planning system whether at Grade I, II* or II; EH only comment on the first two. Such ‘designed’ landscapes cover only a very small proportion of England (in this case) and although 25 years is a very small time it represents a significant period in most people’s life span: a site so used may, potentially, then be considered a ‘brown field’ site even if legislation doesn’t change. A building or painting disfigured for 25 years might be considered a serious matter, we take the same view about landscapes…
There is some debate as to whether wind farms are as ‘clean’ as they are made out to be, ie concrete, steel, subsidies, access routes, pylons, sub-stations, the sheer numbers needed etc, but that is not our role.
The rational basis for our statements can be inferred from our range of PCANs http://www.gardenhistorysociety.org/conservation/conservation-publications/ used by planners throughout the country.