Plans to stop a proposed wind farm on the outskirts of Mullingar got a little harder to achieve this week after two of the residents’ main objections were deemed unuseable at a second meeting in the Bloomfield House hotel.
“Planning authorities take no note of health issues, that’s for the HSE,” said Mr Bernard Dee, a former planning inspector and now consultant contracted to help orchestrate the residents’ objection.
“Also, property values are not seen as a big issue. I want you to know this before you put your heart and soul into it.”
Both the perceived health issues and a potential drop in property prices had been two of the more vexed topics to exercise the residents of the south west Mullingar townland in their opposition to the new development.
“There is a bias at local authorities towards wind farms as they are seen as green and non-invasive, and the national spatial strategy supports them,” he said.
“If we go to the Bord [Pleanala] with a grant [of permission] from the local authority we’re in trouble.”
He did refer to a Westmeath precedent of a wind farm being refused permission at Crowenstown, Delvin by Westmeath County Council, but this was then reversed by An Bord Pleanala (ABP ).
“So even if you get a refusal it will be an uphill struggle,” he said.
There were other negatives for the residents’ cause.
“Modulating farmland [as in the topography of Gaybrook] is the best for wind turbines because it limits the visual impact,” he explained, before adding: “People have no legal right to a view”.
The main hope for a successful appeal against the development, according to Mr Dee, lay in the lax implementation of planning guidelines over the last number of years and the proliferation of one-off houses in the area.
“If the local authority hadn’t been so lax granting one-off housing in the area, they wouldn’t have stressed the area for wind farms,” he pointed out.
“If they had been stricter with one-off houses it would be easier to place a wind farm”.
He explained how there already was a precendent for this in Co Meath when a firm wanted to open a quarry but the council had to turn it down because it had given permission for so many houses in the neighbourhood: “it would’ve been unbelieveable” to have given a quarry the go-ahead.
Galetech Energy from Cootehill, Co Cavan applied in January to Westmeath County Council to build a dozen 135m high wind turbines on 11 properties in the townland and in recent weeks, a number of the 251 property owners who live within one kilometre of a planned turbine have been organising a unified objection. At the moment, best practice worldwide suggests the optimum distance one could safely live from a turbine of this size varies from 600m to 2.4Kms.
The meeting on Monday evening was attended by about 150 people and at least four councillors (Arthur, Burke, Penrose, Troy ), and all heard a measured and well researched presentation from local resident and engineer Andy Royle, as well as from Mr Dee.
Mr Royle explained that, in line with the Kyoto agreement, Ireland is committed to provide 40 per cent of its energy from renewable sources in the next 10 years, up from only 8 per cent in 2005. The forecasted investment in this technology is expected to be in the region of €12bn over that time.
This is very much in line with Government policy and the main reason why, he suggested, of 54 cases of such developments appealed to An Bord Pleanala over the last five years, only 17 of these appeals were successful.
In Gaybrook, each of the 2.5Mw turbines will cost about €2m to install and generate in the region of €450,000 worth of electricity each year from 2013.
At the moment in Ireland there are 119 wind farms, generating 1,457Mw, and this is projected to increase pro rata to 6,500Mw in line with targets.
Mr Royle touched on the subject of property prices but conceded there was very little evidence on the impact on these.
“So far the impacts have been mainly anecdotal and very easily discredited,” he said. He alluded to some small studies on this from the UK but pointed out they were was only based on estate agents’ opinions.
