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Thursday 3 March 2006 - Update -
Plans to create England's largest wind farm in Cumbria have been rejected by the government
A public inquiry into proposals to site one of the country's largest wind farms at at Whinash, near Tebay in Cumbria, began on Tuesday 19th April 2005.
Renewable Development Company and West Coast Energy wanted to erect 27 turbines at Whinash in the Lake District, each almost 400ft high and needing 1,000-ton concrete bases and a substantial network of access roads.
The turbines, which would stretch 7km to the Yorkshire Dales, would generate enough power for 46,000 homes.
There are fears that this would seriously undermine Government guidance to conserve national parks and their settings, and betray all those bodies and individuals who had fought for the establishment and protection of the parks, and the Lake District in particular, and that the building of the wind farm at Whinash could impact on visitor numbers to the area.
They will be sited immediately above two valleys, Bretherdale and Borrowdale, which Alfred Wainwright, the celebrated Lake District guidebook author, said were the most beautiful in the Lakes outside the national park itself.
I invited viewers to vote on whether they were for or against this proposal. At the end of September - 1300 people had responded with the following results:
| Your thoughts on the prososal for Whinash Windfarm : | |
| Strongly against | 648 - 49% |
| Mildly against | 36 - 3% |
| No view either way | 39 - 3% |
| Mildly in favour | 104 - 8% |
| Strongly in favour | 474 - 36% |
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Aerial photo by Simon Ledingham.
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Page last changed 24 Mar 2008.