TWENTY two conditions have been placed on approval for six further wind turbines to join eight existing turbines south east of Yewtree Farm, Glassmoor Bank, Whittlesey.

Fenland District Council Planning Committee agreed to Wind Prospect expanding the wind farm despite opposition from Whittlesey and Ramsey town councils.

One of the strongest opponents to extending the wind farm was, ironically, the former chairman of the planning committee, Councillor Martin Curtis.

Cllr Curtis, a Conservative town, district and county councillor for Whittlesey, opposed the development.

“I must admit it doesn’t surprise me,” he said.

“I think there were some difficulties with national planning legislation which made it very difficult to say no, but I think it’s really disappointing, not just for Whittlesey but for Fenland as a whole.

“What the people that have contacted me say is they don’t mind the wind turbines so much, but they do have an issue with the number we have got in Fenland and the fact that they are starting to become the landscape rather than be part of it.”

Whittlesey resident Alan Bessant believes the effectiveness of wind turbines has been over stated and has campaigned for the past five years against the subsidies they attract.

He said he had no axe to grind on the Glassmoor wind farm as such but questioned why the developers used different figures in respect of how much energy it would produce.

“This may seem picky but over 25 years it all adds up and why within a few hours are the quoted performance figures moving down,” he said, quoting figures produced by the developers in a BBC interview.

“I would like to see the yearly output (April - April) for each of the five years the current installation has been in service -not rolling averages but just the plain numbers,” he said.

“I can’t find that data online.”