Wind turbine to go up for charity

A COMMUNITY group has been set up in Wisbech to erect their own wind turbine to raise money for Fenland youth projects.

Broadwinds Community Interest Group is one of only 900 similar groups set up around the country as part of new laws allowing limited companies to operate for the benefit of the community.

Rose Armstrong of High Road, Guyhirn, is one of those behind Broadwinds and she has successfully applied to Fenland Council for permission for a 40 metre wind mast at Galls Drove, Wisbech St Mary.

But Fenland planners insist this should not be treated as likely consent should the group opt to put the wind turbine itself on the same site.

"From an informal assessment the site appears to be inappropriate for a wind turbine due to its relatively close proximity to dwellings," advised Nigel Brown, the council's development manager.

"In addition the approval of the anemometer mast should not be taken to assume that any future planning application for a wind turbine will be favourably considered by the local planning authority."

A future scheme would be considered "on its planning merits independently from this approval."

Mrs Armstrong says the wind mast "is required to collect wind data prior to the erection of a wind turbine."

Once permission has been granted it will be owned and operated as a Community Interest Group.

Such groups exclude any cash generated being used for anything other than for the benefit of the community and they are tightly regulated.

Mrs Armstrong told Fenland Council that the mast basically amounts to "one 40 metre high pole in the centre of an agricultural plot."

Mr Brown said prior to the mast being put up, the council expected a scheme to be submitted for the marking of its guy lines to reduce the possibility of bird strikes.