By Bryan Johnston
Plans for a 30-megawatt wind farm in Ayrshire have been refused permission
after a reporter decided it would have an unacceptable landscape and
amenity impact.
The Glenouther Renewable Energy Park proposal, comprising 12 turbines up to
126 metres high, was put forward by a subsidiary of energy firm Gamesa on a
site near the village of Fenwick, on the A77 north of Kilmarnock. It was
refused permission a year ago by East Ayrshire Council.
The appeal site lay within an area of search in which wind energy
development was supported in principle in the Ayrshire Joint Structure
Plan, approved in 2007. However, a subsequent addendum identified the site
as lying within an “area of potential constraint”.
Reporter Andrew Sikes found that the scheme’s environmental impact would
conflict with the East Ayrshire Local Development Plan, only adopted by the
authority last month.
He found that the scheme, if allowed, would mean that wind turbines become
a key feature of the landscape east of the M77 motorway, as they already
are to the west. He concluded that the proposal would have a significant
adverse effect on landscape character, visual and residential amenity.
A non-determination appeal involving plans to develop a data centre and a
six-turbine wind farm at Blair Farm, immediately south of the Glenouther
site, was dismissed last summer.
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