Your Conservative Councillors are on the front line in the fight to prevent the expansion of Scout Moor Wind Farm, which overlooks Rochdale. The Conservative Team have been supporting the campaign to stop a massive expansion which would have seen the existing site almost doubled.
Opposition to the expansion has been strong since plans were first revealed by applicants and Councillors have spent a lot of time speaking to people, while canvassing or at public meetings, about the issue. Councillors have attended a number of area forum meetings, at which the issue has been discussed in detail and this has helped them to understand the feeling of people in the local area.
Councillor Mike Holly said: “There has been an overwhelming consensus that people in our area just don’t want these wind turbines. This isn’t just a ‘NIMBY’ (not in my back yard) attitude, the opposition is based on some very sound reasoning.”
The development seeks to build additional turbines at Scout Moor, a natural peat moor which is part of a delicate ecosystem. One issue is that each turbine will sit atop of a concrete base which will involve digging into the moor and disturbing the peat, which forms part of a natural water filtration process.
Councillor Peter Winkler commented: “These turbines have a 25 year life span, but the concrete block upon which they sit will never be removed. It will take each turbine ten years to offset the carbon footprint of its own base. Add to this the roads that will have to be built, logistics to get the turbines and materials up into the moorland and the actual carbon impact of building a huge turbine and shipping it to the UK from Germany where they are made, and it become apparent that this is not ‘green’ energy at all.”
There are a large number of groups and individuals who are keen to see the expansion refused and Councillors are working to support these on a number of grounds including; environmental, landscape, ecological and heritage.
