Predicted view from near Wyndford Mill Farm
This website has been set up to be an ongoing source of information for the community and other stakeholders about the proposed wind farm at King's Street, Brineton, Staffordshire.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
WIND MONITORING MAST INSTALLED
The temporary wind monitoring mast, granted planning approval by the planning inspectorate, has now been installed.
APPEAL OF THE MAIN APPLICATION
Read more about the decision to appeal the refusal of the King's Street Wind Farm here.
TEMPORARY WIND MONITORING MAST APPROVED
Read more about the approval for the temporary wind monitoring mast here.
TEMPORARY WIND MONITORING MAST APPEAL
The appeal for the temporary wind monitoring mast will take place at the South Staffordshire Council Offices, starting at 10.00am on Wednesday 27th July.
APPLICATION REFUSED
The King's Street wind farm application was refused by South Staffordshire council earlier this week (Tuesday 5th April). We are extremely dissapointed in the decision, and also that our request for a deferral was turned down. We stand firm that this is a very good site for a wind farm and one of the only locations suitable for a wind development of this scale. We now await the official decision notice.
REQUEST FOR DETERMINATION EXTENSION
Wind Prospect is requesting that South Staffordshire Council defer the decision on King’s Street wind farm following comments made by Natural England during the 16-week determination period.
Councillors are still due to make a decision on the project at a committee meeting on Tuesday April 5.
After we submitted the planning application, Natural England made their formal response to our plans, which included suggestions for additional survey work. Following a meeting with Natural England earlier this week we intend to conduct some further ecology work.
We are therefore requesting that the decision on the wind farm should be deferred until the additional survey work is completed over the next three months.
We understand this may cause some frustration but the results of these surveys are needed if the council is to make an informed decision about the ecological impacts of the wind farm.
RECOMMENDATION FOR REFUSAL
South Staffordshire Council have recommended that the King's Street wind farm application be refused. A decision is due to be made on April 5th.
DELAY TO THE MAIN APPLICATION DECISION
Due to the late submission of documents by some bodies, South Staffordshire Council has requested an extension to the decision date for the wind farm application (10/00963/FUL). The decision was due to be made in mid March but will now be made at the earliest in April.
MET MAST REFUSAL TO BE APPEALED
It has been decided by Wind Prospect to appeal the decision made by South Staffordshire Council to refuse planning permission for the temporary wind monitoring mast.
PERMISSION FOR THE TEMPORARY ANEMOMETER MAST REFUSED
We are disapointed with the refusal of the anemometer mast application. Currently we are reviewing the decision notice from the Local Planning Authority and will decide soon if we are going to appeal this decision.
PLANNING APPLICATION SUBMITTED
17/12/2010 - We have now submitted the full planning application for the proposed King's Street wind farm to South Staffordshire Council. Click here for more information and details on how to view and comment on this application.
PLANNING PROGRESS UPDATE
Over the last few months, we have been carrying out very detailed surveys of the access route to the proposed wind farm and this has taken longer than we anticipated. We are now in the final stages of completing that work but, as a result, we haven't been able to submit an application by the end of the summer as we had hoped.
As a company we are committed to submitting only planning applications that are for fully viable and buildable projects, so we have a responsibility to iron out the issues arising from these surveys. This is common with developments of this scale and nature. We appreciate the community's concerns and want to keep people up to date with the situation. We hope to submit the application within the next few months and will be giving an expected submission date when the survey work is complete.
LOCAL ACTIVITY UPDATE
At the end of June, a blimp was put up at the location of the proposed wind farm by concerned members of the public.
We have carried out extensive studies into how the proposed wind farm would affect views in the landscape and much care has been taken to position the turbines sensitively. This information will be publicly available once the application has been submitted and, in the mean time, we would encourage concerned members of the community to look at the predicted views section on this website (under The Wind Farm) as it contains a wide range of predicted views from various points in the area.
These predicted views will give people an accurate understanding of how the wind farm will look within the landscape.
PLANNING APPLICATION UPDATE
We have decided upon an access route to the site as a result of more studies and surveys. This will involve a short section of 'Haul Road' which will run more or less in parallel with the straight stretch of road commonly referred to as the 'Straight Mile'. Full plans will be included in the Environmental Statement to be submitted with the planning application. Our expert consultants have been busy surveying the ecology and trees along this stretch during the spring breeding season, and the last results are just coming in.
We aim to submit a planning application in the summer to South Staffordshire District Council.
ACCESS ROUTE UPDATE
We had been planning to transport equipment along the what's commonly referred to as the straight mile (the long straight section of road to the South of the site) during construction of the wind farm . A study has shown that more work to the road may be needed to enable this to happen and members of the community also expressed some concerns about the use of this road during the public consultation.
As a result, we are looking at other ways of getting the turbine equipment to the site and will keep the website updated with the latest plans. We aim to submit the planning application once this work is finished. All the other independent studies such as the noise and landscape assessments are now complete.
If you have further questions about access or construction, you can find out more in the construction section.
A WORD FROM THE TRUSTEES
The Trustees of Weston Park Estate have been asked to summarise the thinking that has led to their agreeing to having the proposed wind farm on their land. Their response can be found here.
PUBLIC CONSULTATION
The online consultation will be closing on the 31st October, and the results will be present in the planning application.
Thanks to everyone who attended the public exhibition at Blymhill Village Hall on Wednesday 24th June, and the Parish meeting on Monday 20th July. We have received a large amount of feedback and questions, both at the meetings and through the website.
We have collated the majority of the questions, and have put answers up on an Answers Page.
There have been requests to find out how much money will be available for the community trust fund. We can now confirm this would be £18,000 per year for the lifetime of the project (25 years).
This fund would be managed by a local group, which in the past has been local councils, charities or other community groups. More information about the trust funds can be found on the Community Benefit page.
WIND FARM VISIT
Many people expressed an interest in visiting a wind farm, and this is something we highly recommend. There is a list of all operational projects in the UK on the BWEA website here, and these can also be viewed on a map here.
Please contact us if you would like to be sent some directions to a wind farm operating the same or similar types of turbines.
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