A faulty sensor on a giant wind turbine is being blamed for huge shards of ice flying off its blades and crashing into nearby homes and gardens. As The Evening Telegraph reported in November, residents in King's Dyke, Whittlesey, had to take cover for more than four hours when huge lumps of ice, some measuring 2ft, were flung from the giant machine's blades.

Controversial plans to build a wind farm near Aberford have been blown away by councillors. The city council's east plans panel has turned down a developer's proposal to put five 125m-tall wind turbines in the green belt on Hook Moor just north of Micklefield. A council report said the application was refused because it would adversely impact on the Precision Approach Radar at RAF Church Fenton and impact upon the Primary Surveillance Radar at RAF Linton on Ouse.

Fears are being raised that proposals to put wind turbines on the roof of the Civic Centre could interfere with radar at Exeter Airport.

According to chiefs at Cambridge Airport, wind farms can interfere with radar across a distance of up to 40 miles. The two feasible locations for the aerospace giant’s move away from Cambridge are Wyton and Mildenhall but wind farms are planned in the vicinity of both. David Buckley, airport director, highlighted the issue at the latest meeting of the Cambridge City Airport Consultative Committee.

Aircraft safety fears could make a drugs group drop a plan to use wind power to cut energy costs and help protect 165 jobs at its Northumberland factory. Bosses at Aesica Pharmaceuticals want to erect two wind turbines next to their plant in Cramlington in an effort to cut its £407,000-a-year electricity bill by about 40%.

Newcastle Airport officials confirmed last night that they were concerned about the Kiln Pit Hill plan because two of the turbines would be visible on their radar.

Yesterday airport head of planning and corporate affairs Graeme Mason said he would be asking Ministers to ‘call in' the application and hold a public inquiry because of the unresolved safety concerns. Site owner Hainsford Energy wants to replace the existing nine turbines at Blyth Harbour with the seven much bigger and more powerful machines to create a facility capable of powering 11,600 homes. Approval was granted by Wansbeck's regulatory committee on Tuesday night, despite a last-minute plea by Newcastle Airport that it would be ‘quite wrong' to give the scheme the green light. The new turbines will be built along Blyth's East Pier and at Battleship Wharf near Cambois. Yesterday Mr Mason said: "I have already been in contact with Government Office for the North-East to formally request that the application is called in by the Secretary of State. It is looking increasingly likely that we will be arguing this issue at a public inquiry.

Airport engineers will write to council planners with their concerns about a series of proposed wind farms. Three separate applications are being drawn up for up to 22 turbines which would lie in the turning zone for Durham Tees Valley Airport. Durham Tees Valley Airport is consulted on any wind farm application which is up to 30km away from its site. It has particularly concerns about three sites to the north-east of Darlington, which are within a few kilometres of the airport.

Blyth Valley Council refused planning permission to enable Aesica Pharmaceuticals to install two wind turbines up to 140 metres high at its plant in Shotton Lane. Although several members of the council's development control panel felt the application was a positive step towards using renewable forms of energy, a vote concluded that the turbines would impact on radar systems in the flight path to and from Newcastle Airport.

Three Scottish windfarms were "switched off" yesterday after a massive turbine collapsed in high winds. The machine, which stands more than 200ft tall at a windfarm in Argyll, apparently "bent in half" during the storm conditions that swept Scotland on Thursday. Operator Scottish Power stopped the 26-turbine facility ahead of a probe into the cause of the collapse. The energy giant also switched off two windfarms in the south of Scotland which use the same Vestas V47 turbines.

ICE forming on wind turbines can fly off, posing a potential danger to passing walkers in "exceptional" weather conditions, ScottishPower has admitted.

Ecotricity, which owns the site, are continuing investigations and have said they are not ruling anything out - though the extent of damage was "unique". To make one of these blades fall off, or to bend it, takes a lot Dale Vince, Ecotricity.

More than 600 people have objected to plans to build a windfarm at Hellrigg near Silloth. NPower applied again in January for a windfarm at Park Head Farm, as it is also known, which was refused two years ago. The four turbines planned would stand 121m high and would cost around £10 million. Eighty-five people attended a meeting arranged by Holme Low parish council on February 26 at the Golf Hotel in Silloth, with all but one declaring themselves against the plans.

Plans for a controversial wind farm behind Greenock have been blown away. And protesters hailed the knock-back as victory for local people. The Scottish Executive has rejected Airtricity's £40 million proposal to erect 22 turbines at Corlic Hill behind Strone. Protest group Keep Corlic Wild waged a four-year battle against the 55-megawatt project ..................

A proposed £55 million wind farm has been scrapped amid concerns it would impact on Glasgow Airport’s radar system. Airtricity’s plan to build near Greenock was rejected by the Scottish Executive. Officials with the firm said they were “very disappointed” by the decision.

As the country continues to be battered by tornadoes and gale force winds, one of Norfolk’s biggest wind farms has been taken out of action again after a workman received an electric shock at the site. While 70mph winds swept across the county, the 30-turbine Scroby Sands wind farm, built off Great Yarmouth’s coast, is still paralysed by the power failure. The wind farm’s owners, E.ON UK, said the station was taken off line a few days after the accident to the worker. A spokesman for the company said: “He was working on a part of the cable that was dead and got a flash burn.”

BAE Systems has developed a bolt-on, two-chip radar signal processor that can negate the radar-confusing returns that wind turbines generate (Flight International, 11-17 July). The advanced digital tracker (ADT) does not interfere with the radar, but post-processes the signals before they are shown on the display, dismissing the clutter the turbines can create so "real" targets can be detected even close to large wind farms.

Vital maintenance work on Scroby Sands windfarm, off the Norfolk coast, has been interrupted after an accident involving the giant jack-up barge Sea Energy. While manoeuvring off the Yarmouth coast on Friday, one of the vessel’s huge legs, which provides a stable working platform by anchoring itself to the seabed, clipped a blade on one of the 30 turbines. Windfarm owner E.ON UK and the Health and Safety Executive immediately launched a full investigation into the incident that has put the turbine out of action. Company spokesman Jamee Majid said: “It was only a light touch but about 20cm was broken off the tip of the 40m blade.

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.

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