A call has been made for the Conisholme wind farm to be closed - before someone is injured. Coun Robert Palmer, Chairman of East Lindsey District Council, says the site should be closed off to the public while an independent health and safety investigation is carried out. On Sunday morning local people woke to find a blade on one of the 89 metre high wind turbines in Fen Lane had broken off.

Has the tenacle UFO got something to do with the broken blades at Conisholme? Engineers from Ecotricity are working to establish how a 20m blade mysteriously fell off a turbine at Conisholme wind farm - but residents have their own conclusions. It is believed the a blade fell off the 89m turbine and another was left badly bent on Sunday January 4.

Over the weekend, reports of a blade missing from one of the mammoth turbines and another blade being badly bent out of shape came to light. The cause of the damage has yet to be established, however some say it could be down to icy weather.

Britain's first offshore wind farm - located half a mile off the Northumberland coastline - should soon be producing energy again after standing idle for more than two years. Green power company E.ON is on the verge of completing the installation of a new armoured cable which will allow the blades on the two turbines off Blyth to start turning again for the first time since early 2006.

Repairs have started to a giant wind turbine between Sheffield and Rotherham after it was knocked out by a gale. A crack was spotted in the blades of one of two turbines yards from the Sheffield Parkway during high winds last month. A special failsafe device cut in to prevent further damage - and the crippled blades were allowed to fall to the ground. Since then, investigations have been going on into the damage at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, where the University of Sheffield operate the two turbines.

E.ON has been given 21 days to repair a broken wind turbine at Lowca in Cumbria or face enforcement action. Copeland Council says the firm has breached planning approval by leaving the turbine unrepaired. The wind turbine has not worked for 14 months and site operator E.On had agreed to repair it by the end of February. ..."It's no good putting conditions down and not doing anything when they are not fulfilled. They have gone way over the time limit by eight months. It's time we took some action."

Campaigners are welcoming an inquiry into the safety of wind turbines after two came crashing down. The manufacturer behind some of the largest wind turbines planned for use in the North-East is conducting an internal review to find why two of its structures buckled in high winds and collapsed. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched an investigation but is awaiting the results of the company's own review before it decides what action to take. The first turbine collapsed in Scotland last November, followed by a second collapse near Dalston, Cumbria, last week. ...Wind farm campaigner John Ferguson, from Northumberland group Save Our Unspoilt Landscape, welcomed the inquiry. He said: "If there is a risk, then it is important we find out now rather than when the turbines are in operation. "The British Wind Energy Association and others seem to brush over the risk here, but these are serious safety concerns.

An inquiry has been launched after Cumbria's oldest wind turbine collapsed. The 100ft structure near Hesket Newmarket crashed down in what may be a first in the 29-year history of harnessing wind energy. The 11-tonne turbine had been producing power for the J Stobart & Sons animal feed mill at Newlands for the last 19 years. It collapsed, narrowly missing a country road, while the plant was operating. No-one was hurt.

A giant crane has moved next to Lowestoft's seafront wind turbine to carry out the delicate task of removing a damaged blade. A lightning strike during a thunderstorm on June 8 damaged the tip of a blade on the 120m landmark known as Gulliver. Although engineers had the blades spinning again the same day a subsequent maintenance inspection revealed there was a problem. For the past eight weeks Gulliver has been out of action awaiting the arrival of a crane big enough to be used to remove the damaged blade.

If Eco2’s application is approved at a planning meeting on Tuesday, four 410ft turbines – amongst the tallest in Britain – will be built on farmland overlooking the village GAG spokesman Bob Slater claims the incident in Scotland last month raises serious safety issues. A 200ft high turbine bent in half in 50mph winds, leaving its blades on the ground. Mr Slater also cites an example in Germany when a 10-metre fragment of rotor blade was sent spinning 200 metres through the air.

...a Vestas V47 turbine, commissioned in November 2001, turned over at Scottish Power's Beinn an Tuirc ...the investigation process is ongoing and until the root cause of the incident is firmly established, the HSE has suggested that some precautionary measures are implemented on Vestas' V47 and V52 turbines, e.g. turbine max. speed pause to be adjusted from 25 m/s to 15 m/s and auto reset parameters reduced from max ten to max five.

A lightning strike on the Lowestoft wind turbine has resulted in it being out of action for the past four weeks, it emerged yesterday. Although it suffered damage in a storm during the summer it has now been discovered that it has suffered minor damage to one of the tips and has been shut down for safety reasons. The giant 120-metre landmark, known as Gulliver, was hit during the thunderstorm on June 8.

A 63-metre tall wind turbine bent in two at Beinn an Tuirc Windfarm last Thursday. In what has been described as ‘a catastrophic failure’ of the turbine, the tower section has folded in the middle smashing the blades and nacelle into the hillside. It is thought by those in the industry that this is the first time a turbine tower has ever collapsed in the UK and Vestas Celtic, which manufactures towers at its nearby Kintyre factory and Scottish Power owners of the farm have launched an inquiry to find out what went wrong with the Vestas V47 turbine.

A SHETLAND wind farm will carry on operating despite the collapse of a turbine identical to the ones they are using. A 200 foot high Vestas V47 turbine was bent in half during storms at Scottish Power's 26 megawatt wind farm, at Beinn an Tuirc, in Argyll and Bute, last week. This site and two others owned by Scottish Power, in the Borders and Ayrshire, had their turbines shut down as a precaution until the cause of the problem is investigated fully by engineers. ..."The safest thing we can do unless otherwise advised by Vestas is to let these things work the way they are supposed to work. "Until we know what caused that turbine to fall over it would be almost dangerous to speculate."

Engineers were working over the weekend to investigate the collapse of a wind turbine which led to three Scottish wind farms being shut. The 200ft turbine at the Beinn an Tuirc wind farm in Argyll and Bute "bent in half" during heavy winds last week. ScottishPower, which owns the 26-turbine facility, has closed it while representatives of the company that manufacture Vestas V47 machines investigate the fault. Dunlaw wind farm, a 26-turbine base near Lauder in the Borders, and the 20-turbine Hare Hill facility, close to New Cumnock, Ayrshire, were also shut down as a precautionary measure.

After the industry's recent boom years, wind power providers and experts are now concerned. The facilities may not be as reliable and durable as producers claim. Indeed, with thousands of mishaps, breakdowns and accidents having been reported in recent years, the difficulties seem to be mounting. Gearboxes hiding inside the casings perched on top of the towering masts have short shelf lives, often crapping out before even five years is up. In some cases, fractures form along the rotors, or even in the foundation, after only limited operation. Short circuits or overheated propellers have been known to cause fires. All this despite manufacturers' promises that the turbines would last at least 20 years.

Repair work is due to begin this week on a wind farm off the coast of Kent which has seen a third of its turbines grind to a halt since early December. Of the 36 turbines erected off Herne Bay - on the Kentish Flats - 12 have experienced gearbox problems. Four have been repaired but the others have been running at reduced efficiency pending a break in the weather. The Danish firm Vestas, which owns and maintains them, said the high failure rate was unusual.

"Most windfarms are near roads, railways, or walking paths, and the dangers are obvious."