The Public Inquiry into the wind farm proposal at Harrington ran from Tuesday 13th July to Wednesday 21st July at DDC offices in Lodge Road, Daventry. The planning inspector appointed by the Secretary of State to listen to the evidence and advise him on whether or not to allow Nuon’s appeal was Mrs. Elizabeth Fieldhouse. An announcement of the result is imminent.
If the appeal is allowed then, barring an appeal to Judicial Review that we almost certainly won’t be able to afford, there is nothing else we can do to stop this development and eventually the cement lorries will start to roll in.
If on the other hand the appeal is dismissed, Nuon will still have an option to come back with a different scheme on the same Merton College land and we have to go through the whole process again. Whether or not Nuon take this course could depend on the detail of the report, but it is by no means unusual for developers to continue to press for permission, reducing the number of turbines included, until either the scheme becomes uneconomical (even with all the assistance they receive from you by way of your increased electricity tarifs and the so-called ‘Renewables Obligation’) or they get permission. In the long term this lunacy will only stop when government undertakes strategic national action to ensure that wind farms only go where they make sense.
What happened at the Inquiry
Evidence was taken for four full days with two trips to view both the site and its ‘setting’. On your behalf we in SNHWF participated in a number of ways as what is called a ‘Rule 6 Party’. This meant that we were able to present evidence and cross examine the ‘expert’ witnesses called by Nuon. Our hands were very much tied by Daventry District Council’s decision to fight the appeal solely on the grounds of the potential harm to the remains of the Cold War Thor Missile site and its ‘setting’. It left the responsibility on us to bring forward all the other evidence related to the harm to other heritage ‘assets’ in the area, the landscape, the damage to bats and bird life, the loss of amenity (especially along the two bridleways that cross the site) and the potential for noise nuisance in neighbouring properties.
This was a huge agenda, which we could only meet with a lot of help and with a lot of sharing of effort. First, we had to produce a short ‘Statement of Case’ outlining the broad basis of our evidence. This was then sharpened into a full ‘Proof of Evidence’, a fairly long document that outlined the detail. Next we had to produce a ‘Comment on a Rebuttal’ that was drafted by one of Nuon’s consultants and finally a ‘Closing Statement’ that formed our last contribution to the proceedings. All three documents are available for inspection and download from our website at www.saynotoharrington.com.
In presenting our case we couldn’t afford to engage a barrister, but we were able to spend an afternoon in London meeting with John Pugh-Smith, a barrister specializing in environmental matters, to receive the benefit of his expert advice. Throughout the inquiry he remained just a ‘phone call and/or an e-mail away and was able to read our documents and provide additional, often very necessary, advice. We are grateful to those of you who made generous contributions allowing us to retain John whose help was invaluable.
In SNHWF we were also fortunate to be able to lodge proof of evidence from three independent witnesses as follows:
- Mr. and Mrs. Neil MacMahon (County Birding) : information about the harm to migrant and breeding birds on the site;
- Mr. Phil Richardson (Northants Bat Group) : information about the likely harm to bats;
- Mr. Brian Skittrall (CPRE): noise and cumulative effects in the area.
Each of these people gave their time and effort entirely freely and each was subjected to vigorous (and ineffective!) cross-examination by Nuon’s legal expert. They were also extremely effective in using their local detailed knowledge gained over many years of effort to expose the many platitudes trotted out by Nuon’s supposed experts in the same fields.
In addition, the SNHWF team presented the remainder of our case on noise (Dr. John Hickey), landscape (Mrs. Ann Smeaton), heritage (Mrs. Melanie Duke) and amenity and safety (Prof. Dave Unwin). We also took it in turns to cross-examine Nuon’s ‘experts’ in all these same areas of concern. When you’re heavily involved as we were it’s hard to know how well all this went down, but most observers have told us that we held our own.
On the Friday of the first week Dave Unwin was involved with others in showing the inspector the detail of the Thor site and its immediate setting using a route that we were able to devise and on the following Wednesday Kate James and Ann Smeaton planned and accompanied the inspector on a four hour tour that looked at the site from some of the more critical viewpoints and also took in the Carpet Baggers museum opened especially for the visit by Mr West. The inspector was also accompanied on the tour by Mr Stevenson for Nuon, and Dr Robinson of English Heritage for DDC.
One of the things that can impress the inspector is the strength of local opinion, and here some thanks are due to numerous people for putting up our signs and for writing additional letters of objection. The count on these was 31 against, one neutral and six for the development. We also want to thanks those who gave up time and travelled to Daventry, some on several days, to show support, and even greater thanks are due to the 14 people who not also had the courage to speak and be subject to cross-examination:
Benedict Cadbury, Catherine Cadbury, Kate Calnan, Sue Jackson-Stops, Kate James, Councillor Chris Millar, Kevin O’Connor, Tim Oglethorpe, David Parton, Mary Sanders-Hewitt, Rod Smeaton, Paul Turner, Victoria Turner, and last but by no means least Fred West.
With hindsight and the experience we now have we know there are some things we could have done better, but we ended the inquiry close to exhaustion and, given the resources of money, knowledge and time that we had available, we believe we mounted a good challenge to Nuon’s proposal.
Conditions
If the proposal gets the green light, then it will be subject to a list of conditions negotiated in a round table discussion on the final day of the inquiry. SNHWF participated in this process to the full and to the best of our ability, and managed to extract a few concessions from the developer of which perhaps the most important are some protection to Maidwell residents in case of noise nuisance from the turbines and planting in Draughton to screen the most affected houses. Conditions are officially set by the inspector in her report and it is therefore not appropriate to pre-empt any decision, but, should the worst happen and the appeal be allowed, we encourage you to take careful note of the imposed conditions and complain loudly to your District Council’s planners every time one is breached. ‘Conditions’ matter.
A Tour of the Thor Site
All of the effort in assembling evidence didn’t just help us make our case, it also taught all of us a great deal about the wonderfully interesting part of the country in which we live. In particular we were privileged to hear Dr. Ben Robinson of the Northampton office of English Heritage talk about the national heritage importance of the old Thor missile site. Those of us who accompanied the inspector on the two tours were even more fortunate to be with him on the site as he reconstructed the detail of how the entire operation was run. Whatever happens as a result of the inquiry, if we can find a suitable date and get permission from the landowners, Ben has kindly agreed to lead an afternoon’s ‘field trip’ at the site. Watch the parish magazines and notice boards for details of when this will take place, likely to be in September after the harvest and before ploughing.
Local Update (with thanks to Richard Cox, West Haddon)
Status as of 22 July 2010
The threat of being surrounded by huge wind turbines over 125m (410ft) high is real. It is insane to argue that this concentration of investment in the area of lowest mean winds in the country is a rational response to the threat of global warming. The current count shown on the map below is 83, with another 10 turbines operational and a proposed extension of 7 at Burton Wold, together with an approved development of 7 turbines at Pipewell, not shown on this map, taking the total to 107.
