Borders planning chiefs have said a decision to overturn their rejection of wind farm plans near Stow could encourage future developments.

The Scottish Government has said it will not rush a verdict on a wind farm inquiry held 16 months ago. The 48-turbine Fallago Rig proposal in the Borders was the subject of a public hearing in February 2008. Roxburgh and Berwickshire MSP John Lamont has criticised the timescale and transparency of the process.

A BITTER dispute that has split a Ross-shire community took a fresh twist this week with a furious local group lamenting "the death of democracy" over a contentious £41million wind farm. The jibe from Garve and District Community Council comes at an embarrassing time for Highland Council which last month saw councillors overturn the authority's own guidelines by approving the Lochluichart scheme tabled by joint venture company, Infinergy Ltd.

MATTAPOISETT - There will be no wind turbine off Brandt Island Road, due to the Mattapoisett Wind Power Committee's decision that it would not be economically viable. The committee voted last week to not pursue a feasibility analysis for a turbine because data from the meteorological tower in the area indicated it would require two turbines in order to generate enough electricity to break even. "It does not make economic sense to pursue that," said Selectman Jordan C. Collyer, who is also a wind power committee member. "We don't have room there for two turbines anyway. It just wasn't going to be worth the effort."

FEARS Louth could become a 'forest' of wind turbines prompted town councillors to object to a plan to build the first one in the town. Nancy Stockwell wants to put up an eight metre high wind turbine in her back garden in Grimsby Road, Louth. But Coun Tony Lione said: "I'd hate to see in ten years time a forest of these things around the town. The neighbours will suffer with the noise."

The Township of Madawaska Valley Council has slapped a moratorium on the approval of any wind turbine projects until next year's municipal elections, at which time voters will have a chance to vote on the wind farm issue in a referendum question attached to their ballots. The move came after an at-times heated debate on the issue at Monday night's regular council meeting.

The seven 406ft turbines planned at Petsoe End, Emberton, were given the go-ahead by the city planning committee. But it was anything but a breeze for supporters of the Your Energy project - with councillors split six-five on the crucial vote. ...Cllr Isabella Fraser said: "The council is caught between a rock and a hard place. We are in a no-win situation." She complained of "email harassment" by supporters of the scheme and attacked those in the public gallery for "extremely immature" behaviour in waving placards.

Regarding the three-page petition, based on legal advice, Touchette said the board had to accept it. However, he added, the petition doesn't demand a revote of the March 3 town meeting ordinance amendment vote that OK'd the creation of a wind farm district. Essentially, the petition is a proposed land-use ordinance that seeks to ban wind power development in Roxbury as of March 3 until the town can create and adopt zoning and land-use ordinances. It requires planners to regulate wind power development "to minimize its deleterious effects on public health, safety and welfare." ..."We've also been advised to do a revote on the (March 3) ordinance, because there were a few gray areas involved," Touchette said. "We had a public informational meeting instead of a public hearing.

A full environmental study on a wind turbine test mast must be made before city planners decide whether it would spoil views of the 'dreaming spires'. ...A city council spokesman said: "We had asked the Co-op to withdraw the planning application as it lacked certain important information. "This included a landscape assessment which looked at how the character of the landscape would be affected.

Some of the protesters who attended the meeting to oppose the new turbine Safety fears have been raised over plans to build a 400ft wind turbine next to a quiet residential area. Concerned residents packed a meeting yesterday to discuss the proposals to put the £2million turbine at Princes Soft Drinks factory in Weaverthorpe Road, Tong, Bradford. It has been hailed as a 21st century landmark for the city and a way of dramatically cutting carbon emissions from one of the district's major businesses. But organisers of the meeting, at Tong Conservative Club yesterday, claim residents could be put in danger if the turbine is allowed.

More than 150 people were at the meeting organised by the group opposed to the proposed Viking Energy windfarm. Chairman Billy Fox stressed that the group was not against windfarms or renewable energy projects, but it had concerns about the scale of the Viking Energy project for financial and environmental reasons. Mr Fox said there would be "no winners" in this, and the "silent majority" were opposed to the proposed windfarm. He said Shetland should be concentrating on conservation, domestic projects and small-scale renewable energy schemes such as in Fair Isle and Foula.

A plan to build a major wind farm on Lewis should be allowed to go ahead, but on a much smaller scale, Western Isles councillors decided yesterday. Scottish & Southern Energy had wanted to put up 125 turbines - each nearly 500ft tall - at Pairc in South Lochs, but later reduced this to 57 bigger and more powerful generators. However, yesterday the council's environment and protective services committee backed only 26 of these, saying the other 31 were in unsuitable sites. A spokesman for Comhairle nan Eilean Siar - Western Isles Council - said: "We are not saying it has to be 26. If they could resite some of these turbines, the council was open to that."

The energy company is holding an open day at the Waewaepa stockyard from 10am-2pm, to discuss yet another proposed farm - this time in the ranges east of Pahiatua. Many locals, some of whom only found out about the farm in a mailbox leaflet a month ago, were not impressed, Mr Taylor said. "They have put all the glossy brochures out, and all the bull**** and jellybeans or whatever you want to call it. I am not that rapt about it."

BACUP residents are demanding more infor-mation before backing a scheme that could see the town owning part of a wind farm. Coronation Power, the London company planning wind farms near Bacup, Todmorden and Wardle, held a meeting after Micro-generation Yorkshire and the Hebden Bridge Alt-ernative Technology Centre approached Coronation with the suggestion that people living in the surrounding area should buy into the five-turbine wind farm proposed for Todmorden Moor. Coronation wanted to gauge levels of interest, and share information about the next steps. More than 30 people attended the meeting at Todmorden Town Hall, including members of Bacup Consortium Trust, whose chairman Di Van Ruitenbeek, said: "We would be interested in taking the idea forward if the project goes ahead, but only if it applied to all three of Coronation's sites, otherwise there would be no benefit to the people of Bacup.

DEVELOPERS who hope to build a £6.6million wind farm in a Suffolk village have won permission for a 12-month monitoring mast to assess the site's suitability. Mid Suffolk District Council has been consulting on an application for a 70metre high wind monitoring mast at Wyverstone, near Stowmarket. The mast would be in place for up to a year and could lead to an application for three 130m high turbines at the village's Potash chicken farm.

A "wind farm" that would take advantage of the gusts that have been blowing through the Central Coast at 30 to 50 mph is moving right along despite a lawsuit filed against the county's approval of the project. Construction won't begin for at least a year, but in the meantime officials of the developer say they are working to meet all the requirements imposed by the county with the intention of protecting the environment surrounding the "clean energy" project.

A SITE earmarked for a major windfarm development near Haltwhistle has been placed on a national list of beauty spots under threat. The former opencast site at Plenmeller was included on the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) list in the same week that Harworth Power Ltd took the first steps toward the erection of 24 wind turbines.

A PLAN to build a windfarm near Allonby has received nearly 1,000 objections. Council planning boss Rick Outhwaite said this was the biggest response to a planning application that he had ever received.

MidAmerican Energy is developing a 100-turbine wind-power project in Carroll County that will stretch from just inside Carroll's two-mile limit to Breda. The $300 million turbine project started in recent days with the construction of access roads and other initial work, Tom Budler, Mid-American's general manager for wind power, said in an interview with the Daily Times Herald. MidAmerican plans to move swiftly on the project. "It will absolutely be on the line by the end of 2008," Budler said. ...Budler and other MidAmerican officials were in Carroll Monday for a city council meeting to discuss a proposed ordinance that would affect seven of the 100 turbines. Those seven would be in the jurisdiction of the city, and officials want more information about height, setbacks and possible impact on other development before any ordinance goes into effect.

More than 100 wind turbines could be built in northern Mower County if a power company constructing a meteorological tower there finds good conditions. Depending on the wind data, construction could begin in late 2008 or 2009, said Jeff Broberg, an official with the Rochester-based McGhie & Betts Environmental Services Inc., which is working with Renewable Energy Systems. RES, based in Austin, Texas, and with an office in Minneapolis, gained approval Tuesday from the Mower County Board for a conditional-use permit to build and operate a 190-foot tower in Sargeant Township for wind data.