'Test' Wind Farm Mast Wins Approval

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.

The wind turbines could go up as soon as 2008/2009, powering 3,300 properties, if permission is granted.

A public exhibition is being held today from noon until 8pm at Wyverstone's village hall where experts will be available to answer any questions people may have about the plans.

The man behind the project is 48-year-old Andy Hilton, managing director of Norfolk-based Wind Power Renewables.

He is proud to have been the project manager for the construction of Britain's two largest offshore wind farms to date - Scroby Sands, off Yarmouth, and Barrow wind farm, off the north-west coast.

Mr Hilton said yesterday: "I am spending £20,000 of my own money putting this mast up and would not do so if I did not feel it was a good site.

"I am looking forward to answering any questions people have and hopefully allaying fears. I have been building wind farms for five or six years now and put more than 140 up and never heard a noisy one yet, I do not know where this idea comes from."

But Simon Williams, a resident from Potash Road, who lives closest to the site, said: "We are an extremely quiet location and our home is downwind of the proposed development. The proposed site is too close to my home to be acceptable."

Mr Williams said he was concerned at noise from the operation there and flickering caused by the sun light passing through the rotating blades.

Roy Barker, the district councillor who represents the community, said: "At the moment this is just to monitor the wind. If this goes forward to a wind turbines application I hope people will visit other wind farms before making up their minds."

A spokeswoman for the authority said the monitoring mast had been approved for a year and anticipates there will later be a further application submitted for the wind farm.