Dorset Against Rural Turbines
Assessing the facts and acting before it's too late.

Infinergy have announced their revised planning application for 4 industrial wind turbines at East Stoke near Wool, the previous application having been withdrawn in the face of strong objections from Natural England, the County Council and the Dorset Wildlife Trust and from local people. They have now applied to Purbeck District Council for four turbines 410 feet (125 metres) high at the same location.

Four other applications for windfarms have recently been refused mainly because of noise pollution to nearby houses. Homes here are within some 550 metres – and some residents have been driven out of their homes by the noise from a windfarm. The turbines will visually dominate the Purbeck Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the World Heritage Coast and will be visible from much of Dorset.

Although DART will be requesting an extension to the consultation period, letters of objection need to be sent as soon as possible. We also hope to be holding a public meeting in the near future.

Golden Rules of Objecting:

1. You must point out that you are OBJECTING to the application.
2. You must include the planning application number, which is: 6/2010/0082.
3. Your name and address must be legible. Print your name next to your signature.
4. Each person in your household should write a separate letter of objection. It need not be long. Just 2 or 3 points from the ones below. Every letter counts and should be individual in nature.

Keep your emotions out of your letter. The planners are only interested in objections that are based on planning policy or legal grounds.

All offers of assistance, financial or practical are urgently needed.

Grounds for Objection:

• The turbines, at 125 metres (410 feet) high, will be 2 metres higher than the spire of Salisbury Cathedral and only 8 metres lower than the highest point of the inner Purbeck Ridge (Whiteway Hill). They will dominate the whole of the Purbeck Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and parts of the World Heritage site (The Jurassic Coast). Also, the site is immediately adjacent to European protected Dorset Heathland, most of which has SSSI (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) status and SAC (Special Area of Conservation) status. The turbines will have an unacceptable visual impact detrimental to the character of the area.
• Tourism is a major industry in Purbeck and the social, economic and environmental damage caused by the proposed windfarm will far outweigh any benefits it may bring. No long terms jobs will be created but many local jobs in tourism-related enterprises would be lost as holidaymakers boycott the area to avoid the turbines. The contribution this project will make to the national renewable electricity supply and carbon savings is so small as to be negligible.
• The turbines will be too close to dwellings, resulting in unacceptable visual impact for the occupants, and the prices of such houses will be adversely affected. Evidence of this is the recent decision of the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), the Government body responsible for setting Council Tax Bands, to put a house in another part of the country into a lower tax band after its price fell as a direct result of a nearby windfarm development.
• Despite claims to the contrary by the developers, there is a high risk of noise pollution from even the most modern of turbines. This could lead to health problems for nearby residents. Residents elsewhere in the country have been driven out of their homes by the noise of turbines.
• Numerous safety issues are raised by placing these turbines so close to human activity. There have been several examples, both in this country and abroad, some quite recently, of blades snapping off, turbines catching fire and long shards of ice flying off.
• The blade tips of the turbines are often turning at 145mph. This will have a significant birdkill effect on migrating birds in mist and dusk since South Dorset is a major bird migratory route.
• Bats, which inhabit nearby areas, are more likely to be killed by air disturbances caused by the turbine blades than the blades themselves. Bats are a protected species under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 and the EU Habitats Regulations, which makes the killing of them illegal.