‘Say no to turbines’ call amid fears for East Yorkshire landscape 

Councillors are being urged to reject plans for more towering turbines by one of the East Coast’s most popular beaches amid increasing concerns that the area is becoming blighted by onshore wind farms.

Airvolution Energy Limited is seeking permission for the four 410ft (125 metre) high turbines at Demming Farm, near Fraisthorpe, close to nine others which have already been approved.

Last January, a Government inspector approved the building of nine turbines next to the beach at Fraisthorpe, despite hundreds of objections including one from the artist David Hockney, who said it would “deface the landscape and the seafront of Bridlington Bay”.

Councillors are being recommended to refuse the application at a meeting of East Riding Council’s planning committee on Thursday, which English Heritage says will cause “substantial” harm to Elizabethan Burton Agnes Hall.

At nearby Carnaby, two 410ft turbines have been approved, while a decision is awaited from Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, following an appeal by developers over the refusal of planning permission for six 360ft turbines at Thornholme, five miles away.

The owners of Lissett wind farm, three miles from Fraisthorpe, want to add five turbines to the 12 it already has there.

Four parish councils are objecting to the latest application, as well as Bridlington Town Council and Bridlington Civic Society, which highlights the “increasing questionability of the technology” and the change “from a rural landscape to one more redolent of industry”.

A total of 18 people have written in to object.

Ulrome and Lissett Parish Council said the East Coast is being “saturated with turbines and no-one drives to the coast to look at them – despite what the Government says, tourism is the mainstay of the East Riding.”

In a report to councillors, planners intimate for the first time that a “tipping point” will be reached where the landscape “verges on becoming a wind farm landscape”. Resident Alan McLean said in his view that point had already been reached.

He said: “To my view it is turning an agricultural landscape to a quasi-industrial landscape, particularly, if God forbid, the Lissett extension is allowed as they are all in the same plain. Particularly looking down from up on the Wolds it will be a turbine landscape. I hope the council turns it down not only on the heritage aspect, but on the cumulative impact and the creation of a turbine landscape.”

Campaigner David Hinde said there was a danger of a belt of turbines being created stretching from Lissett to Burton Agnes and Thornholme.

He said they were waiting for the Planning Inspectorate and the Government – including East Yorkshire MP Greg Knight – to “stand by their word” and ensure no more wind farms were built.

He said: “The encouraging thing is that Eric Pickles had turned down a couple of appeals and Thornholme and West Heslerton (where RWE Npower Renewables is appealing the refusal of planning permission to build 10 413ft high turbines) have been called in by Eric Pickles. We are hopeful that they will keep to what they said and where communities don’t want them they will give weight to their views.

“We are waiting for the proof of the pudding.”

There have been seven letters of support, with one saying the visual impact is preferable to fracking or nuclear, and another saying they would not want the council to “waste” resources fighting the application.