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Tories to veto windfarm proposals?
Credit: By Ben Goddard | County Times | 16 May 2015 | www.countytimes.co.uk ~~
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Translate: FROM English | TO English
Protesters are confident that the Mid Wales Wind Farm Inquiry will be refused completely now the country has a Conservative government.
Jonathan Wilkinson, chairman of Montgomeryshire Against Pylons – MAP – said that he expects an imminent decision to reject all five windfarms proposals across Powys, each consisting of between 17 and 65 turbines up to 450 feet tall.
This is despite landowners in the path of the National Grid’s Mid Wales Connection Project being notified that more surveys were planned for 2015 to monitor the ecology along the 33-mile pylon route between Cefn Coch and Oswestry.
Mr Wilkinson claims that these surveys are just mandatory and no indication of any result.
He said: “We received a letter a few weeks ago telling us that more ecological surveys were required and a better survey of wildlife which they did already last year.
“Last year the ecological survey went well for us as they found so much wildlife on the pylon route and found a considerable number of bats around Meifod.
“So I don’t mind them carrying on their surveys on the number of bats for the time being.
“It seems National Grid haven’t got any idea whether the project is going to happen, but they have to carry on planning because if they don’t do anything they could lose a year on construction.”
After a year long planning inquiry regarding the five windfarms, planning inspector Andrew Poulter handed his recommendations to Secretary of State, Ed Davey, back on December 8, but a decision was made to delay any verdict until after last week’s General Election.
Now the decision over windfarms at Llandinam, Carnedd Wen, Llaithddu, Llanbrynmair and Llanbadarn Fynydd will be decided by the newly appointed Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Amber Rudd.
“After the election result was announced and I knew we would have a Conservative government, I wrote an email to Martin Kingsley stating that the government would be against onshore wind projects,” added Mr Wilkinson.
“Amber Rudd will shortly be looking at the Mid Wales Enquiry and we are confident the Conservative government will ensure that the project is stopped.
“My email was written along those lines and stating that we were looking forward to their withdrawal from Montgomeryshire.
“I had a reply back stating that they were obligated to continue until they knew whether it was going ahead or not.
“It was a very short reply but I wanted to flag up that the Conservatives would be very active in trying to stop what is going on.
“I don’t think they’re all that confident that it’s going to happen particularly as Glyn Davies couldn’t be more consistently against these proposals.”
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