Wind turbine inquiry begins

A PUBLIC inquiry gets underway on Tuesday into plans for a development of wind turbines on the southern edge of Exmoor, near Knowstone.

The Exmoor Society, which is fighting the plans, is appealing for donations to their fighting fund to oppose the plan.

The Society has dubbed the proposals, "the biggest threat to the integrity of the National Park since the failed proposal to afforest The Chains in 1958 and the loss of moorland through to the 1970s."

The proposals, for Three Moor and Bickham Moor is for nine turbines which will be 105 metres high to the blade tip and a second proposal for four turbines at 100 metres high to blade tip.

The Ministry of Defence has requested that all of them should be lit up at night.

The Society has joined with the Three Moors Campaign and the CPRE to form the Rural Exmoor Alliance to fight all the proposals.

The society objects to the impact the turbines will have on the "landscape, character and special qualities of Exmoor" — "a jewel in the crown of our countryside" — and points out that Government policy states that wind turbines are not acceptable if their environmental effects are damaging.

"It could be seen as cultural vandalism to impose industrial turbines on the dubious benefit of providing a small amount of unreliable electricity," said a spokesman.