Protesters fighting plans for wind turbines on the outskirts of Stone have won a temporary reprieve.
Severn Trent Water says that because of the strength of opposition from local residents it will delay its plans for a mast at Aston Hall Farm in Aston-by-Stone until 2012. It aims to use the time to find another site in the Midlands.
Severn Trent Water won permission to put up the mast at Aston Hall Farm, between the villages of Aston-by-Stone and Burston, after a planning appeal.
The company wanted to test wind levels for two years before deciding whether to build three 426ft high wind turbines on the site, midway between the A34 and the Stoke-on-Trent to Stafford railway line.
Campaigner Paul Shaw, chairman of action group STOPstw (Stone and Trent Valley Oppose Severn Trent Water), is not celebrating victory yet.
He said: “I’m not going to class this as a victory. We’re fighting hard and we appreciate Severn Trent’s position. We’ll still be fighting if the company comes back to the site again.
“We’re continuing to fundraise for a possible legal battle. We’re at £10,000-plus now and shall continue to our target of between £50,000 and £60,000. If it does come to that, we will get the best people to fight it. Severn Trent knows we’re here and will not go away.”
A spokesman for Severn Trent said: “In response to concerns raised by the local community we have decided to delay our investigation into Aston Hall Farm until September 2012.
“We plan to establish a wind turbine site at one of the other sites we have been developing which could then be used as a reference site where the community can see and experience a development first hand.”
Have a look at the STOPstw website here
2 comments
Richard Stone
I totally appreciate people’s concerns about having major civil engnieering projects happening on their door steps.
However, for me wind turbines are an essential part of the future of the UK’s energy economy. They have to go somewhere.
Furthermore, many of the protestestations often used as a case against wind farms are more fiction than fact. Things like the idea that they are bad for the local bird and bat wildlife for instance and even the noise levels are massively over-exaggerated.
Of course, I don’t know the specific arguments in this case. But these things do have to go somewhere and the protest won’t seem as significant if the existing global wamring prediction turn out to be accurate, or even modest.
Having said all that, I appreciate it’s easy to make the argument for a wind turbine when it’s not on your doorstep and do empathise with the people effected.
simeon golland
shame, they are so good for the environment hopefully severn trent will win