Last updated 13:12, Tuesday, 05 August 2008

MORE than 200 people turned out last night to show their opposition to a proposed wind farm in a South Lakeland beauty spot.

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There is widespread concern that the turbines, which would be four times the height of historic Cartmel Priory, will destroy views of the fells from Cartmel and its peninsula, Greenodd, Ulverston and further afield for local people and visitors.

STOP secretary Stephanie Leadbetter, from Speel Bank, which would be 525 metres from the development, was a member of Friends of Eden, Lakeland and Lunesdale Scenery for four years and told the meeting in Cartmel village hall: “I saw first-hand communities were being devastated by these developments.”

The group is now mobilising a campaign to object to the plans after permission was given for a monitoring mast last month.

Canon Robert Bailey, who had been asked by STOP to chair the meeting, said the priory had been built by 12 Wiltshire monks 800 years ago.

He said: “It would have changed the look and life in the village, having a monastery in it’s midst. It provided secure employment and new skills were passed on to local workers and since that time the village of Cartmel has continued to evolve.

There’s no one time when you can say ‘that’s how Cartmel has always been or that it should always be’.”

But he said the community was proud of its heritage and up to 100,000 people visited the area because of “the ‘wow factor’” of the peninsula.

He said: “I am concerned that the siting will affect this whole area and the special Cartmel experience.”

Dr Mike Hall, vice-chairman of FELLS, from Kirkby Lonsdale, said Cumbria was “under siege” by wind farms ringing the Lake District National Park.

He also told the meeting that wind farms generated very little electricity when turning at low speeds and didn’t generate on full power until wind speed was around 30mph.

Dr Hall said wind speed, and generation of power, was intermittent and unpredictable, which meant that the more wind farms built, the more coal and gas-fired power stations were needed.

Carbon emission savings were also very small. Government recommendations were that renewable energy targets should be pursued “at all costs” and Dr Hall added: “You have to demonstrate that this wind farm will impose environmental, economic and social impact that can’t be properly monitored.

“I am quite certain that the Stribers proposal is really not justified by the supposed benefits.”

Dr Hall also said that over the wind farm’s 25-year lifespan, Energia in Natura would have an income of £63m.

He said: “To build it will cost about £15m and they will pay about £1.5m to the landowners in rental and there are other costs but that is still a lot of money.”

STOP chairman Malcolm Leadbetter said an Energia in Natura representative had said that the development would regenerate the area.

In a question and answer session Andrew Forsyth, executive director of Friends of the Lake District said: “We will be four-square behind STOP to prevent this development going forward.”

He also warned about the developers offering a community fund.

It was asked who the landowners were, but Mrs Leadbetter said: “They are as entitled to put in any application they like, just as I am to [put an application in] to put up a garage. There are two landowners but we have to fight the developers. They are farmers and trying to do their best.”

STOP has organised two trips to the ridge, on August 9 and 16, from 2pm to 5pm.

The group has set up a website at www.stopcartmelturbines.com