27 November 2006

Torridge District Council has granted consent to Coronation Power for the temporary erection of an anemometer mast on land known as Wheelers Cross, near the village of Bradworthy, north Devon. The decision was made by the Council's Planning Committee on November 23rd.

The 'met' mast will test wind strength and direction over the land located to the east of Bradworthy. It is a 55-metre aluminium tower, fixed to the ground by cables and its installation will have limited impact on the land or land use. The mast will be installed for a period of approximately 18 months, although planning permission has been approved for a period of three years.

The met mast is an important part of Coronation Power's assessment of Wheelers Cross as a possible location for a small wind farm comprising up to four 75m high turbines with a combined capacity of approximately 5MW. An environmental study covering a range of issues such as landscape and visual impact, land use, ecology, nature conservation, air safeguarding, archaeology, hydrology, and transport will be undertaken by Coronation Power before a decision is made to submit a planning application for a wind farm at the Wheelers Cross site.

If planning permission should subsequently be granted for the development of a wind farm, it will have the capacity to generate enough electricity to meet the domestic energy needs of approximately 2,800 homes* or 10% of Torridge District’s domestic electricity consumption and would contribute towards meeting Devon’s renewable energy targets of 150 MW by 2010 designated in the Devon Structure Plan.

Vickram Mirchandani, Coronation Power’s Managing Director said, "We welcome the Planning Committee's decision to grant consent to our planning application for a met mast. It will provide us with valuable data on the site’s viability as a location for a wind farm.

“We are also considering other issues such as the ecology and hydrology of the land and surrounding area, and landscape and access issues. As a result of the first phase of our work we have reduced the height of the turbines to blade tip by 40% from 125 metres to 75 metres, so the proposed turbines will be the same height as the Forest Moor turbines”.

“Since announcing our outline plans earlier this year, we have received a fair level of feedback from local people —both for and against, and we will wish to speak further with local people once we have determined our plans”.

*Figures based on average annual household electricity consumption of 4.7 MWh as recommended by BWEA.