Sports · North Weekly
Whitelee Wind Farm is Scotland's largest onshore wind farm and it has more than 200 turbines, England's largest is Keadby Wind Farm in Lincolnshire, which has 34 turbines. Simon Lejeune, the lead project development manager at Vattenfall, said: "We have a climate emergency and we have an energy problem. "I think you've probably seen it this summer, unprecedented levels of continued heatwaves, droughts, we need to do something drastic about it.
"We need to transition towards renewable energy and we need to do it very, very quickly and large onshore wind farms are solving part of that problem." When asked why the company is proposing one wind farm in the specific location, he said there were "a lot of constraints that we need to take into account and one of the main constraints is people, big populations of people". He said wind farms "tend to be in countryside locations, rural locations". The fens are covered in peatland, which according to Cambridgeshire County Council is "critical for preserving global biodiversity, provide safe drinking water, minimise flood risk and help address climate change".
Charlotte Cane, the Liberal Democrat MP for Ely and East Cambridgeshire, raised concerns that the turbines could become unstable in the peat soil. Lejeune said peat was "something that crops up quite a lot with onshore wind farms, particularly in Scotland". He said the company would survey the peat and if it was deep they would consider "pile foundations", long elements made of substances such as steel.
"One thing's for sure, we look to minimise the impacts upon peat and the turbines will be sturdy. They're going to be there for 40 years. We don't want any issues with those," he said.
He added land farming can continue around turbines and that it can be "good for the farm to have a diversification of income, which might be for the longevity of their farming enterprise". Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, has questioned the suitability of building Redmere near the key US Air Force bases of RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall. "I have warned repeatedly that battery energy storage systems near important airbases is an invitation for hostile states and others to commit acts of sabotage," Timothy said.
Lejeune acknowledged "they could be targeted like any infrastructure could, but we take these things seriously". "I'm not sure I've heard of an onshore wind farm being specifically targeted at all in the UK," he added. Tristan Gale, Suffolk County Council's cabinet member for planning, called the proposals "unprecedented in scale" adding the turbines "would be gargantuan and seen from miles around".
Vattenfall has been holding three drop-in sessions in the vicinity of both Redmere and another proposed wind farm near Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, with letters being sent to local residents to invite them to attend. The BBC went along to the first session in Feltwell, Norfolk. Greg and Amanda Gibbs said their home of 32 years would be "surrounded" by the wind farm.
Amanda Gibbs questioned why solar panels were not being placed on factories and warehouses instead of grade one agricultural land, which is the best quality. "It's the same with the turbines. They could be placed in industrial parks all over the country and they'd not be an issue," she said, adding she feared for the foundations of their house.
Greg Gibbs claimed his "house price went down 12% overnight". Charlotte Cirillo said she was "not comfortable" with where the turbines were going, stating "they're quite close to our home". "The noise is another factor we're worried about and just a blot on the landscape," she said, adding it was causing uncertainty.
However, Nicki Tinsley said "we just wanted to see how close it was to our house, and it's very close". "We're quite happy with it, to be honest," she said. "They've got to be somewhere and we think there's not that many houses around here, so I don't think this is going to be upsetting as many people as it could be if it was somewhere else."
Source: BBC
