Pant y Maen is a recently consented seven turbine wind farm site in Denbighshire, North Wales. To say the site had a history in relation to wind farm planning would be an understatement. In 2005 the Welsh Assembly Government issued spatial planning policy for large scale onshore wind in Wales (TAN8) which identified seven strategic search areas (SSA), deemed suitable for such developments and with the optimistic target that 800MW would be consented and built within five years. This site lies within the northernmost SSA and is a commercial conifer plantation.
In 2007 another developer submitted a planning application for a wind farm called Gorsedd Brân, consisting of 13 turbines up to 125m tip height. The application was refused by Denbighshire County Council (DCC) in February 2008. The decision was appealed by the developer with a slightly amended layout and the appeal dismissed in November 2009.
The initial refusal by DCC was on the basis of landscape and visual effects, noise, flooding and ecology. Flooding and ecology issues were resolved with DCC prior to appeal.
The appeal was dismissed on the grounds of ‘visual effects of the proposal both within the locality and from more distant views, such as from the Clwydian Range Area of Outstanding Beauty (AONB); and the effects of noise on the amenity of residents within the locality’. The inspector’s decision was then overturned by a challenge in High Court but subsequently upheld by the Court of Appeal.
The issue in relation to noise was not that the wind farm would have been too loud, but that, in combination with other projects in the area, the prevailing wind would introduce additional noise to dwellings when they might currently expect not to hear the existing turbines. The inspector held that this ‘would significantly increase the general noise nuisance experienced by a significant number of local residents’. So, the issue was overall expected periods of exposure to wind farm noise rather than the volume of noise.
Visual issues related to overbearing impact on several local dwellings and distant views of the wind farm, from a key viewpoint from the AONB, looking across to Snowdon.
