Well, the application is now in. The Application Form itself is downloadable from the internet, is about 10 pages long, and is simplicity itself. But the supporting documentation is another story. The meat is in the “Design and Access Statement”. This can go into considerable detail, from the local and personal background of the applicants, to the general political situation and public and government attitude to climate change and renewable energy. Considerable effort is required in order to justify the site itself, in terms of maximum exposure to the wind, and yet with minimum impact on the landscape. These two items are quite hard to square, as at first glance they appear to conflict! This is also the place to talk about energy costs and their impact on the farm business, and practical matters such as how the turbine is to be transported to and installed on the site. Then there is the impact on wildlife and the environment, and it is likely that you will need to commission a professional survey to look at, principally, birds, bats and newts. It is helpful that the RSPB have recently come out in favour of wind turbines, saying that the threat to individual birds from turbine blades is insignificant when compared to the threats to entire species posed by climate change.
Then there are maps. You seem to need hundreds, maps to show where the turbine will go within your own property, maps to show the distances and directions to neighbours, and in our situation, maps to show our farm in relation to local airfields (of which there are two, a private flying club, and an RAF helicopter training station.)
My “Photoshop” skills have improved from producing nice landscape shots with the turbine pasted in. These photos are a must. We have also included information about the turbine itself, power output graphs, noise projections, comments on the likelihood of so-called “shadow flicker” (where the sun shines through the turbine blades while it is rotating, causing a flickering effect), life expectancy, and any issues around removing the turbine and base from the site at the end of its life.
If you can persuade any neighbours to write brief letters of support, or at least of not objecting, these will be very valuable.
Finally, once the application is lodged with the Planning Authority, these days it goes up on the Government’s Internet Planning Portal. This is good, because you can then log in and see how the application is progressing, together with any submissions from the public or other interested parties.
