Appeal Final Day. 1st June 2010

Final day of the Appeal

The inquiry returned to Woodgreen Animal shelter and opened with the final submissions by three members of the public and four District and County Councillors.

The one public statement advised the inspector of his childhood experience in remembering the building of the airfield and the aircraft flying to war and his experiences since then. It was a very moving account.

The councillors advised the inspector of the unanimous votes of Parish and district councillors in rejecting the npower windfarm.

After some legal clearing up on the conditions document it is to be noted the requirements of AM conditions were further discussed. It was concerning to note the npower request variations on hub heights were very interesting. They want a variable in hub height up to 20 metres instead of the 3metre suggested but still using a turbine max height of 127m. CFA are analysing this and have come to the (perhaps erroneous) conclusion the majority of AM problems seem to be caused by long blades on short hub heights. Is npower considering a new design of turbine where the blades are shorter but put higher into the wind sheer levels to avoid the AM thump? If so this would herald a much faster blade rotation and could herald new problems of noise and faster shadow and strobing effects.

Now we come to the closing speeches. David Cocks QC was first. He concentrated on the facts of the enquiry. He underlined the findings of the evidence and hammered home the facts that there were omissions of power calculations of the windfarm in production in the Environmental Statement (ES). He highlighted the defects and many errors in the document that were exposed. He underlined the way the npower witnesses had tried to minimise the effect of the massive effect the turbines will have on individuals and the loss of residential amenity in homes closest to the turbines. He pointed out the deficiencies of noise gathering and interpretation. He also noted the extraordinary attack on individual statements by Mr Hardy. It was a powerful submission that kept to the issues.

Then it was Tina Douglas, the Barrister for the Hunts District Council. In her submission she underlined the case for the council making particular references to the way Mr Hardy had tried to browbeat the inspector with references to planning law. She stated the WF-SPD (Wind Farm. Standard Planning Document) produced by LUC for the council was advisory to show the possibility of windfarm clusters in the HDC area and not mandatory. Toseland Hall was put into context and, in one example, the fact a barn was next to the house did not necessarily make it a farm house. She pointed out it was in the ownership of the Diocese of Ely and the barn was probably a tithe barn for the 10% donation to the church locally.

It was admitted HDC had not carried out as thorough an examination of some sections of the ES as should have been and the consultant used by HDC to assess the document was only used to ensure compliance of the structure of the document but not a full analysis of it. During her submission, Mrs Douglas emphasised further errors in the ES including the montages. This included the incorrect titling and/or location of at least one. However, she underlined the fact that the needs of the people and the environment should be protected and this fact should counter the appellant constant mantra that the needs of the nation should over-ride local convenience.

Now it came to David Hardy. It is very fair to say he is very articulate, persuasive and beguilingly convincing. He also had the advantage of being last in this rather biased system. His submission has to boiled down, in my personal opinion, to attacking the two previous submissions proving his extreme skill in fast thinking. It is difficult to report the speech because of its technical content and fast fire approach. I can only summarise it by reflection and impression, and I apologise to him if I have got the wrong end of the stick.

He seems to constantly emphasised the needs of the nations requirement for more renewable energy and the need for more turbines. This is an issue we locally cannot consider. He even used a figure showing the requirement of the East of England having to have many, many hundreds more wind turbines to meet CO² (and Government) targets and intimated we should get used to the idea.

Mr Hardy used a very large amount of time trying to, it seems to me, frighten the Inspector with a barrage of his duties to the nation in accordance of the planning regulations and heavily quoted from them. He seemed to use a lot of references (most from where he appeared himself for the appellants) from recent appeals and emphasised one particular Inspectors judgements (Ruth Mackenzie) as being, apparently out of line and could be revisited for legal review.

He attacked the evidence of the witnesses including, again, the acoustician Mike Stigwood. He emphasised the skill, expertise and authority of his own witnesses, messrs Stevenson, Dr. Bullmore, Dixon and…Dr Edis.

He underlined his experts evidence of the insignificance of Toseland Hall. At this moment I could not help compare this with the evidence, unwittingly given perhaps, by the personal statement of the earlier witness who described the building of the north south runway during the war. He pointed out even at a time of dire need and national emergency, the runway was slightly realigned to avoid Toseland Hall. Even then the importance of this building was recognised and even the chimneys were preserved and were lit instead of being removed as was commonly done elsewhere.

It was the difficulty of keeping up with the argument Mr Hardy was putting that confused the audience leaving just an impression of numbed despondency. It is on reflection one realises there is one over-riding factor that one is left with.

It is not so much what he did say but more of what he did NOT say.

By concentrating of Government policy, planning law and previous appeal statements he seems to have avoided a lot of issues brought out specific to this appeal at Cotton Farm. He admitted, at one brief stage the opposition was articulate. A compliment to the CFA perhaps? There are outstanding issues still to be gone through. He re-emphasised his doubts over a stud farm; obviously not fully appreciating the nature and business of thoroughbred breeding. The inspector has kept the inquiry open allowing rebuttal by Hardy of the evidence brought to the appeal by the Gransden Glider Club. These facts alone showed the powerful evidence brought against his client.

Wednesday is the day of the Inspectors accompanied tour of the area. As I write this it is a very still and misty early morning (0615) with the promise of a fine day. I hope he enjoys our countryside. During the day we shall fly two blimps and at Cotton Farm npower have been asked to provide markers (helium balloons) showing some of the turbine locations. Npower, somewhat wryly, declined CFAG’s offer of our blimps to be put on the turbines positions.

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