Cyngor Cymuned Nantglyn

DRAFT RESPONSE - Comments please on the feedback page or to Ian

 

 

Dear Madam

 

Clocaenog Windfarm - Representation on behalf of Nantglyn Community Council

(Ref No 10018820)

1 Background

Nantglyn Community Council

Nantglyn Community Council is one of five Community Councils whose area encompass or adjoin the proposed development. The Council is the lowest tier of local government and is represented by seven Community Councillors who were last elected in 2012. There are approximately 300 electors, around 135 dwellings, a number of listed buildings and a Conservation Area in the Council’s administrative area which is shown in the map at Appendix 1.

 

Consultation Responses to the Developer

 

The Council submitted comments on the proposed development in September 2011. These are attached as Appendix 2. Our comments made at this time remain valid as our concerns have not been taken into account.

 

Outline Representation to the Planning Inspectorate

 

The Council’s outline submission to the Planning inspectorate (ref no 10018820) was submitted on 8th June 2013 and details of the matters the Council wished to raise are as set out in Appendix 3

 

2 Large Scale Infrastructure Application Process

By way of context the Community Council would wish to highlight the lack of awareness of and inadequate information and effective consultation on the policies which underpin the proposed development.

Despite the provision of several bilingual newsletters over the course of the last few years and meetings held outside the development area, people within the affected parishes have very little understanding of the development consent application process and find the large scale infrastructure application arrangements somewhat inaccessible.

As an example of the latter point, the Planning Inspectorate website contains electronic copies of the Environmental Statement (ES) which runs to 114 documents. These are not even listed in order / sequence so members of the community / public have to search through all 114 to find the relevant section of the ES. This is a significant barrier to effective public engagement with the examination process.

The Welsh Government Spatial Planning and Planning for Renewable Energy Policies and UK Government National Policy Statements EN1 & EN3 have not been widely published in this part of North Wales which finds itself subject to these policies.

In short, the electors of the parish have not been sufficiently prepared or supported to give detailed and justified technical comments on the application. There is as a consequence a democratic deficit wherein those most affected by the proposed development are – by virtue of the inaccessible nature of the application process and highly technical material – less able to contribute to the process than the developer supported with highly paid consultants engaged to put the best possible case forward.

Engagement with the Local Authority has also been problematic. The County Council has sought to minimize the costs of responding to the application and has relied heavily on the advice of its own officers rather than seeking specialist advice on key areas such as hydrology. The County Council has not adopted an inclusive approach to the task of commenting on Community Consultation or Local Impact – specifically it has not sought views from the Community Council on draft versions of the Statement of Community Consultation or Local Impact Report.

The developers have also undertaken the bare minimum of consultation – establishing a selective consultation group which failed to hold meetings in the most affected areas and which was frequently better attended by the developer and their consultants than by consultees.

We note that the Planning Inspectorate has determined that the developer has met the technical requirements of section 56 & 59 of the Planning Act 2008 however we would ask the Examining Authority to bear our observations in mind when considering representations.

 

3 The Council’s Representations

Audible Noise

The Council would highlight the tranquility of the area within the Parish and of the North Denbigh Moors and would suggest that the construction and operation of the windfarm will significantly adversely affect this quality. The tranquility of the area means that the noise generated from the proposed development – individually and cumulatively with other consented developments, will be disproportionately experienced within the locality.

The Council is concerned that the developers’ noise calculations are based on a model using the Repower MM82 wind turbine¹ and that this may not in fact be an appropriate basis for the calculation of noise. The Repower MM82 wind turbine with a rated power of 2 megawatts has a rotor diameter of 82 metres and a hub height of up to 100 metres. The developer is seeking consent for turbines of 2-3 MW with an ‘indicative’ hub height of 100m and an ‘indicative’ rotor diameter of 90m. The proposed turbines are therefore larger than those modeled and the resultant sound effects may not be as indicated. We would therefore ask the Inspector to request new noise models for turbines closer to those that are proposed

The Council notes that there are multiple properties within the development area where noise levels will be major and where noise emissions are close to the ETSU maxima. Given the uncertainty in modeling noise effectively (to take account of landforms, weather conditions such as temperature inversions and the like), the choice of turbine for modeling purposes and the tranquility of the location, it would seem to be appropriate for the ETSU lower limit of 35B to be considered by the Inspector as a threshold for acceptability.

In the event that development consent is granted, should the developer choose a turbine which is either taller than that modeled or has a rotor diameter in excess of 82m we would ask there to be a planning condition which requires the noise modeling to be repeated so as to satisfy the Planning Authority that noise limits will not be breached.

 

Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise

The Environmental Statement (Annex 11.1 p19) is dismissive of the potential impact of Low Frequency noise and most of the evidence cited relates to research that is between 6 and 16 years old. This is unacceptable and fails to address the potential risk to health arising from the development.

In 1982 NASA² acknowledged that wind turbines can produce vibration and low frequency noise. In 1987 the US Department of Energy³ specifically identified community annoyance from low frequency noise caused by wind turbines. In its introduction the report stated:

‘Experience with wind turbines has shown that it is possible, under the right circumstances, for low-frequency (LF) acoustic noise radiated from the turbine rotor to interact with residential structures of nearby communities and annoy the occupants’ (1987; 1)

More recently in 2009 Lloyds Register ODS – a consultancy arm of Lloyds Register undertook a review of the evidence associated with wind turbines and low frequency noise on behalf of a wind energy developer - Statoil. The research⁴ contained a review of some of the research on the issue of low frequency noise and concluded that more research was required as the evidence of an association between was inconclusive. It is questionable whether this research – commissioned by a company with a financial interest in developing wind energy would be classified as ‘unbiased’.

In 2010 the UK Health Protection Agency⁵ confirmed that wind turbines produced low frequency noise specifically picturing wind turbines on the cover of the report. The report acknowledged the paucity of research in this area but did uncritically cite work by Castello Branco and Alves-Pereria (2004; 2007) which is relevant. The 2007 research is based on the impact of wind turbines and the abstract to the paper presented to the Second International Meeting on Wind Turbine Noise in Lyon France advises that:

‘Widespread statements claiming no harm is caused by in-home ILFN produced by WT rotating blades are fallacies that cannot, in good conscience, continue to be perpetuated. In-home ILFN generated by WT blades can lead to severe health problems, specifically, VAD. Real and efficient zoning for WT must be scientifically determined, and quickly adopted, in order to competently and responsibly protect Public Health’ (2007;1)

In 2011 DEFRA commissioned consultants⁶ to provide a methodology for dealing with noise complaints associated with wind turbines and the guide commented on low frequency noise:

‘It is therefore conceivable that lower frequencies may become the distinguishing feature of turbine noise under some circumstances’ (2011; 23)

In 2011 Pedersen & Moller⁷ published research in the Royal Acoustical Society of America which assessed the significance of low frequency noise from larger wind turbines. The abstract advises that

‘The noise emission from 48 wind turbines with nominal electric power up to 3.6 MW is analyzed and discussed. The relative amount of low-frequency noise is higher for large turbines (2.3–3.6 MW) than for small turbines (≤ 2 MW), and the difference is statistically significant.’ (2011;1)

In December 2011 the Danish Government updated its statutory guidelines⁸ for measuring low frequency noise from windfarms. The Danish Environmental Protection Agency revised its earlier view that low frequency noise from wind turbines did not constitute a problem as long as the noise levels did not exceed the limits for the ‘normal noise’ from wind turbines. Due to public concern, the Environmental Protection Agency now publishes specific guidelines on low frequency noise caused by wind turbines

This year (2013) the International Conference on Wind Turbine Noise in Denver, Colorado will be considering papers on the measurement of Low Frequency Noise and Infrasound. The conference is also receiving papers on their effects. Much as though the wind industry would like to deny the very existence of low frequency noise caused by wind turbines, research has consistently highlighted this problem.

Industry sponsored research has tended to either deny, explain away or minimize the effects of low frequency noise and the developers environmental statement has taken this approach.

In the Council’s view, the developer has failed to properly consider low frequency noise arising from the proposed development and the Inspector should request an independent (not developer led or commissioned) assessment of the likely effect within the development area.

Hydrology

Chapter 8 of the Environmental Statement describes the effects of the proposed development on hydrology and geology. The Council is concerned that the presentation of these effects does not adequately represent the cumulative effect of the potential impacts which are presented in isolation.

The generation of turbid runoff which could enter adjacent drains and watercourses ultimately polluting Afon Clwyd, Afon Alwen and the River Dee is assessed as having a medium potential impact. The same risk is present in relation to local water supplies and this is assessed as having a high potential impact. The development has the potential to affect both private households who take water from springs as well as impacting on regional watercourses.

Chapter 8 refers the reader to Chapter 16 of the Environmental Statement when matters associated with mitigation of turbid runoff are considered. Chapter 16 refers the reader to Annex 3.1 – the OUTLINE Construction Method Statement. Section 15 of the Outline Construction Method Statement advises that

‘In the unlikely event that construction works lead to the temporary deterioration of a PWS, an alternative temporary supply of water will be provided (e.g. water tankered to property and provision of temporary drinking water storage tanks). Damaged filters will be replaced in the unlikely event that a PWS becomes contaminated with sediments’

The Council would ask the Inspector to include a condition within any development consent order to the effect that the above arrangements will be put in place for the life of the development and not just on a temporary basis and a condition requiring the developer to take out an insurance bond to insure the provision of wholesome water supply to all properties within the development area identified as having some measure of hydrological risk.

Ecology

The developer indicates that there is a lack of knowledge and therefore confidence in predictions of bat mortality in the operational phase of the windfarm and that monitoring is proposed as mitigation (see 9.9.3.33). This does not indicate what will be done if bat mortality is considered to be problematic or who would assess this independently. It would seem to be appropriate for the developer to make financial provision for independent monitoring of such issues with a clear undertaking to suspend turbine operations if bat strikes are assessed as a significant issue.

The developer has withheld information (Anexes 10.6 and 10.9) and this would seem to prejudice the ability of the Council to comment on all matters associated with ecology. These appendices should be published so comment can be made on them.

 

Landscape & Visual

The developers assessment of the visual impact of the turbines is disputed by the Council.

The proposed development will dominate the upland areas to the rear of the existing windfarm and will be wholly out of scale. The turbines will be approximately twice the size of those located at Tir Mostyn and Foel Goch and contrary to the developers opinion (at Annex 5.6 B.8) will not blend in well with the existing windfarm at Tir Mostyn or the consented but unbuilt Brenig windfarm.

The landscape impacts are potentially understated due to the methodology adopted by the developer in assessing landscape impact (sensitivity of landscape and of viewer to change) and magnitude of change. The assessment methodology is not sufficiently refined and may understate the landscape impacts. Specifically the matrix presented is a 3 x 3 table at Appendix 5.2 of the Environmental Statement. The matrix should assess 9 possible combinations of High, Medium and Low to enable proper assessments of impact to be understood but only presents 3 x 2 assessments. This does not allow for all possible combinations of sensitivity and impact – specifically adverse high and medium combinations where as a consequence the impact is not assessed.

In relation to the assessment made of the visual impact on the Nantglyn village, only one viewpoint has been chosen – Waen, which does not provide a sufficient assessment of the impact of the proposed development from other locations. In the Counci’s view the six turbines closest to Nantglyn Village will be un necessarily overbearing and will overshadow parts of the community – particularly the settlement of Soar and properties located on the opposite or lee slopes of the valley ( i.e. locations closer than the 4.6km viewpoint chosen in Waen)

In addition to wider landscape and visual impacts it is noted that nine existing occupied residential properties will experience a major adverse impact arising from the location and operation of the proposed turbines and that one property at Cuglas experience shadow flicker exceeding industry limits.

The inspector is therefore requested to ask for a reassessment of the landscape impacts using a more sophisticated assessment matrix and additional viewpoints or that the developer revise its application to specifically reduce the impact on the residential properties above and withdraw the application pending this being done.

Grid Connection

The application will result in a need for connection to the national grid which will generate a second development consent application. This is unwelcome and the Council strenuously objects to any overland (as opposed to underground) connection from the proposed substation over the area covered by the Community Council. Undergrounding of cabling should be a requirement of both the Clocaenog application and also the grid connection application

Transport - the proposed construction project is likely to cause significant disruption to communities along the A5 and to households in and around Nantglyn. The proposed abnormal loads will impact on communities along the A5 and on street parking in Corwen will be adversely affected. The inbound (and outbound – which have not been included in Annex 12.02 volume estimates) Abnormal Loads for tower sections, blades and nacelles will disrupt communities along the A5 on a daily basis for a period of at least six months during months 16-21 of the project – on top of which there are 620 loads of aggregate; 128 loads of concrete and 113 loads of sand. These loads will generate an equivalent number of return journeys which will severely disrupt traffic flow on the A5 – an arterial route between North Wales and Cheshire / Shropshire. Annex 12.2 refers to a peak of 404 HGV loads per month which would equate to 101 loads per week or 20.2 per day. Assuming an 8 hr day this means that there would be one HGV delivery every twenty five minutes at peak time….In fact the position is worse as HGV vehicle return journeys are excluded from this so the reality will be one HGV movement every ten minutes at key locations along the construction traffic route. The Council believes that this intensity of traffic is unacceptable.

The Council also notes that assumptions made in Annex 12.2 are not consistent with the Outline Construction Method Statement in that the latter assumes some weekend working but the Summary Programme of Works assumes only 20 working days per month. If it is the developers’ intention to restrict traffic movement to weekdays only this should be more specific to enable the Highways Authorities to take enforcement action should deliveries and other construction traffic be observed at weekends.

Finally, the Community Council is concerned that traffic will take short cuts through the village of Nantglyn and the hamlet of Waen and would request that the traffic management plan specifically prohibit vehicles travelling along the B5435 as this is a shortcut between the B5401 and the A543. A planning condition to this effect for the construction phase would enable the Highways Authorities (as there are two for this road) to address noncompliance.

4 Concluding Comments & Summary

Nantglyn Community Council represents around 300 local electors who have still not had sufficient local information on the impact of this project on their community. The developer, despite being asked, has failed to hold consultation meetings in the heart of the development area or at locations which are most affected. The Environmental Impact documents are badly organized on the PINS website and are largely inaccessible to all but a few English speakers who have the time or ability to decipher its complex information.

Despite recommendations by Denbighshire County Council’s Scrutiny Committee made on 16th July 2012 requesting the Council to dedicate additional internal resources to pro-actively support third party organisations and help local communities understand, engage and respond to major infrastructure projects, this has not been carried out to any large extent.

Much can be said about the process of designating the Clocaenog Forest as an appropriate area for wind energy development, including the Welsh Government’s failure to account for the overwhelming number of consultation responses which requested that TAN 8 be not adopted. As the Community Council sees it, despite what appears to be a very logical and organized process for rationally determining the merits of this large scale infrastructure project, there are still fundamental reasons why the application should not be approved.

In the light of the recent statement by Eric Pickles, Minister for Communities and Local Government, to the effect that ‘some local communities have genuine concerns that when it comes to wind farms insufficient weight is being given to environmental considerations like landscape, heritage and local amenity’ we would ask the Inspector to consider our community and those around the proposed development as ones that have such genuine concerns. We believe, like the Minister that ‘the need for renewable energy does not automatically override environmental protections and the planning concerns of local communities’.

 

 

Nantglyn Community Council

 

 

APPENDIX 1

 

APPENDIX 2

Cyngor Cymdeithas NANTGLYN Community Council

 

Ty’n Y Ffrith

Nantglyn

Denbigh

Denbighshire

LL16 5RG

 

18th September 2011

 

Clocaenog Forest Consultation

RWE npower Renewables Unit 22

Baglan Bay Innovation Centre

Baglan Energy Park

Baglan

Port Talbot

West Glamorgan

SA12 7AX

 

Dear Sirs

 

Clocaenog Windfarm – Environmental Information

 

Nantglyn Community Council represents over 120 households and around 300 electors within the community of Nantglyn in Denbighshire.

 

The Community Council has met and has discussed the proposed Clocaenog Forest Windfarm and we wish to make the following representations and comments on behalf of our community.

 

We believe that the draft environmental information fails to properly address the impact of the proposed windfarm on our community and that the consultation process has not provided sufficient opportunity for all members of our community to understand and comment on the prospective application. We have a number of specific concerns as follows:

 

1 The draft environmental statement was not published in Welsh and thus the detailed technical information within the document is less accessible to Welsh first language speakers.

 

2 The public meetings held during the consultation period have not been held within the development area or in its immediate locality so some people who are less mobile or who do not have access to transport may have been prevented from viewing the information provided.

 

3 The assessments of the visual impact on residential property have only assessed the impact on properties within 2km of the development – yet the environmental statement acknowledges that the impacts on properties 2-5km from turbines are likely to be ‘significant’. To provide justification for the assertion that it will be unlikely that there will be significant impacts upon residential amenity at this distance, we would request that properties located 2-5km from turbines should also be individually assessed.

 

4 The viewpoints selected in the Landscape and Visual assessment fail to assess the individual and cumulative impacts on the village of Nantglyn and surrounding hamlets.

 

5 Grid connection is inadequately assessed even though more precise assessments of possible route corridors are available from SP Manweb. We understand that it has now been decided that the St Asaph connection will be the proposed connection route when SP Manweb consult on grid connection later this year. Given the above we believe a more accurate impact assessment can be undertaken and this should be included in the Environmental Information.

 

6 The potential increase in traffic on the B5435 which links two of the major roads serving the development (the A543 and the B5401) is not assessed. This would impact adversely on the village of Nantglyn and on two listed buildings which abut the B5435.

 

7 The residual effects on private water supplies are referenced in the draft environmental information however it is not adequately indicated how these residual effects will be addressed.

 

8 Finally the extent and design of the project does not take account of the recent Written Statement by the Welsh Government on Planning for Renewable Energy in Wales. We would request that consideration is given to a smaller scheme which would ensure that the capacity of Strategic Search Area ‘A’ (Clocaenog Forest) is not exceeded.

 

In view of the above the Community Council would ask Npower to

 

a) Revise its Environmental Information to take account of the above points and

b) Undertake more detailed consultation with communities like ours who are likely to be most affected by the development. To this end we would specifically request that Npower arranges a small number of consultation events in Nantglyn where local residents can address their own points of concern directly to your staff.

 

Yours

Ioan Morris

Chairman

Nantglyn Community Council

 

APPENDIX 3

 

The Council wishes to object to the application on the following grounds

 

Audible Noise - the proposed development will generate an unacceptable level of noise nuisance for residents in the local community. This could be remedied by reducing the size or number of turbines immediately to the rear of the existing Tir Mostyn windfarm.

 

Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise - the development will generate low frequency noise which is a health hazard

 

Hydrology - the extraction of peat and other materials to form bases for the turbines will have adverse effects on the private water supplies of residents closest to the development

 

Ecology - the application will adversely impact on the natural ecology of the Clocaenog Forest and Denbigh Moors, in particular damage will be done to protected species of Red Squirrel, Black Grouse and Red Kite

 

Landscape - the proposed development will dominate the upland areas to the rear of the existing windfarm and will be wholly out of scale. The turbines will be approximately twice the size of those located at Tir Mostyn and Foel Goch and will not blend in well with the existing windfarm. The six turbines closest to Nantglyn Village will be un necessarily overbearing and will overshadow the community

 

Grid Connection - the application will result in a need for connection to the national grid which will generate a second development consent application. This is unwelcome and the Council strenuously objects to any overland (as opposed to underground) connection from the proposed substation over the area covered by the Community Council. Undergrounding of cabling should be a requirement of both the Clocaenog application and also the grid connection application

 

Transport - the proposed construction project is likely to cause significant disruption to communities along the A5 and to households in and around Nantglyn.

 

Community Benefit - in the event that the development is approved, any community benefit should not be paid to non-statutory organisations (such as Vestri Foundation) as they have no democratic authority on which to base distribution of funds