Environment and Sustainability Committee
Inquiry into Energy Policy and Planning in Wales

EPP 230 – Carolle Doyle

Dear Committee Members,
   As a resident of the Vyrnwy valley in Montgomeryshire I am deeply concerned that Montgomeryshire has been targetted for the erection of wind turbines which will not only despoil the landscape but will cause irreversible ecological damage.
   I would like the committee to look at the cumulitive effect of some 800 proposed turbines some of which would be 606 ft tall. This is nothing less than industrialisation and something, that I feel, was never envisaged when TAN 8 was first drafted. I would like to see this reviewed as a matter of urgency.
   I am particularly concerned with Dyfnant Forest where 35 606 ft high turbines are being proposed by Scottish Power Renewables. I have read the Welsh Assembly's 20 year plan for Welsh forests and also its action plan and nowhere, in either document, are wind turbines mentioned. Instead, both are full of the need for more trees not less, the need to make them places for leisure activities and for small, ecologically friendly coppicing etc. How this policy and action plan equates to erecting massive turbines (which also includes digging 'borrow pits' - ie quarries - to provide stone for access roads, build a cement mixing works and a 4 acre sub station) I do not see. I would like some explanation from the committee on how they see these two conflicting policies working.
   Yours faithfully,
   Carolle Doyle