Local residents successfully opposed a Planning Application to build 3, 120m high wind turbines in Swindon that would have been less than 300 metres from the nearest house, with 5000 homes and families within 2km of the turbines.

They did this because of the effects on the health and wellbeing of residents and the visual impact on the landscape. Effects that, in some cases, have been so extreme as to drive people living near wind turbines to sell their homes at reduced value and move away.

Ill Wind wants to avoid residents having to fight that same battle again and again as developers apply to build turbines in different sites across the borough knowing that once one site is approved the floodgates will open.

Although the Draft Plan says “Large scale wind-turbines (individual or collectively) are unlikely to be supported in close proximity to residential properties”, without a definition of “close proximity” we are at the mercy of the whims of SBC’s Planning Department. The same Planning Department that previously ignored all evidence presented by local residents and independent experts and recommended that three, 120m high turbines be built just 278m away from Swindon homes.

Ill Wind, many Parish Councils and well over 800 individuals asked for the new Core Strategy to include a minimum, typically 2km, separation distance clause – but it hasn’t appeared in the revised version.

Other Councils have done it – so why not Swindon?

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

There is a 9 week public consultation from Thursday 20th December 2012 until 6pm on Thursday 21st February 2013.

• You can read information about the Draft Swindon Borough Local Plan 2026, and also the ways in which comments can be made at:http://www.swindon.gov.uk/localplan Page 116 onwards of Swindon Borough Local Plan – Pre Submission are relevant.
• Click Here for options on e-mailing the Council about the Local Plan.
• You can add your name to the growing countrywide concerns about wind turbines at: Together Against Wind