Amanda Holden’s ‘concern’ for Middleton wind farm campaign 

Amanda Holden is said to have been “shocked” by plans to extend a wind farm – according to a concerned resident.

It is claimed that the Britain’s Got Talent judge, who visited the Sussex coast for a holiday, “seemed appalled” by the Rampion 2 wind farm proposals.

It comes after her girls’ holiday with celebrity friends Tamzin Outhwaite, Lisa Faulkner, Angela Griffin, Sarah Parrish, Nicola Stephenson and Tracy Ann Oberman.

Concerned resident Zoë Visram says she spotted the group in Middleton, Bognor and took the opportunity to tell them about the wind farm, which would span from Newhaven to Selsey with up to 116 turbines.

Zoë said: “When I explained that the turbines will be up to the height of the Eiffel tower, they were all so nice and seemed genuinely shocked and appalled that such a huge wind farm was being proposed so close to shore in this area of natural beauty.

“Amanda kindly suggested and rallied her friends for a group photo with our beautiful beach behind them, and I was lucky enough to have a few photos with some of the group too.”

Amanda, who publicly opposed plans for a wind farm near her Norfolk holiday home in 2009, visited Sussex for a girls’ holiday earlier this month.

The group rented a house on the beachfront for a Christmas weekend away enjoying their time through various activities in the area.

Amanda, 50, took to Instagram to post plenty of snaps and videos from her trip, where she was seen in a swimsuit in the cold sea.

“I explained that sadly our heritage coast of the Sussex Bay would be blighted by the gigantic wind farm being proposed,” Zoë added.

“Plus not only would the new wind farm be huge, with the tallest turbines anywhere in the UK so close to shore, it can’t even connect to the national grid via any existing cable connections.

“Instead cutting a new 37km cable route through ancient woodland and parts of the South Downs National Park.”

Zoë says that several protected species at sea and on land would be affected, as well as the Sussex Kelp Forests.

Afterwards, Tamzin Outhwaite started following Zoë’s new Instagram page, which was set up to rally people against the wind farm.

Zoë said: “She liked a photo we posted of our beautiful seascape at sunset plus Nicola Stephenson has liked our comment about finding a better way forward with a link to the petition.

“So thanks to these wonderful ladies we are off to a good start with our new efforts on social media.”

A spokesman from the Rampion 2 team said: “We held a nine-week public consultation for Rampion 2 earlier this year, with well over 12,000 visits to our online exhibition and we are currently working to accommodate feedback in our design change and mitigation planning process.

“Projects like Rampion 2 are vital to help achieve the UK Government’s ambitious offshore wind energy targets of 40GW by 2030.

“It is the only wind farm proposed off the south coast of England and could quadruple our contribution to creating clean, renewable electricity to power over one million homes and reduce carbon emissions by around 1.8 million tonnes per year, in addition to Rampion’s existing generation.

“Modern wind turbines can now generate three times the power output of the original Rampion 1 turbines and we aim to maximise the advances in technology to generate more clean energy for the UK and south east.

“We’ve had to assess the maximum theoretical siting of turbines across the full search area, however this is not where we expect the project will end up.

“The proposed Rampion 2 will be at least as far offshore as the existing Rampion 1, which is eight miles to the nearest point.”

Zoë has started a petition to gain support for the campaign and says she wants others to have the chance to “have their voice heard”.