Central Government has extended an off-shore exclusion area in the Strait of Gibraltar.

Central Government, acting on a request from the regional Junta de Andalucía, has ordered that there will be no new wind farms off the coast of Zahara or Barbate. A previous exclusion zone there has now been extended, prohibiting the windmills along the entire Strait of Gibraltar, from Algeciras to Trafalgar.

The Government published a study on off-shore wind farms last December, which indicated areas where auctions could take place for the installation of the mills, and the Strait was considered to be the most interesting one at the time, given the conditions there. Oddly there are already land based wind farms in the same area.

Now though the Ministry for the Environment has won the day and there is a larger protected area to protect the thousands of migratory birds which fly over between Europe and Africa.