Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Chalmers, Colville, Currie, Dance, Devon and Marshall.

There were no declarations of interest.

Report by Head of Planning and Regulatory Services

The Chair welcomed everyone present to the meeting and invited the Committee to introduce themselves. 

Mr Reppke advised the Chair that a late representation had been received by the Planning Section the previous day from Mr Donald MacLean who wished to speak at the meeting.  He advised that under normal procedures, for a person to be allowed to speak at a discretionary hearing, their representation must be received before the meeting of the PPSL Committee when the application is first discussed.  He advised that it would be at the Committees discretion to allow Mr MacLean to speak at the meeting.  The Committee agreed that they wished to hear Mr MacLean speak.

Mr Reppke outlined the procedure that would be followed during the meeting and invited those who wished to address the Committee to identify themselves. 

Planning Authority

Richard Kerr, Principal Planning Officer advised that the application before the Committee was for a commercial wind farm consisting of the erection of 16 wind turbines (81 metres blade to tip), formation of access tracks, erection of wind monitoring mast, construction of switch gear building and temporary construction compound on an area of land at Todd Hill, Southend and that the access to the site would be from the B842.  Mr Kerr referred the Committee to Supplementary Report 1 and advised that since this report had been issued a further representation had been received from argyllwindfarms.com containing 368 signatures of support.  He advised that the applicant had provided a visual document containing views of the site from prominent places and advised that the Committee had undertaken a short tour of these places prior to the Hearing.  Mr Kerr advised that the site was within an area of panoramic quality and national scenic area and that the visibility of turbine hub height had originally been assessed by looking at the site from 13 representative viewpoints. This had been increased to 23 due to the exposed nature of the site.  He added that other commercial wind farm sites in the area were hidden by topography and that this site would not be.  Mr Kerr continued by saying that the wind farm would assume importance the landscape due to the low landscape and minimal topography.  He showed slide visuals of the landscape with predicted views of the wind farm and a number of photographs of current views of the site from different angles.  Mr Kerr advised that the application was inconsistent with Planning Policies LP ENV10, LP DC 6, STRAT DC4, STRAT DC5 and LP REN 1 amongst others.  He advised that the full list of compliant/conflicting policies was contained in appendix A, section P of the original report.  With regard to consultees he advised that objections had been received from SNH and RSPB and that Southend Community Council were in support of the application.  He reported that a late representation had been received from Mr Kidd advising that the Community Council response claiming that the wind farm would only be visible from the sea was factorially incorrect as the wind farm would be clearly visible from Southend.  He advised that a total of 515 representations had been received, 293 in support and 225 against plus the 368 signatures that had been recently received from argyllwindfarms.com.  Mr Kerr advised that the planning section were recommending refusal of the application and gave a summary of the reasons for refusal contained within the report.  To conclude he reiterated that the two main grounds for refusal were landscape and visual; and insufficient information to assess the cumulative impact.

Applicant

Ms Sarah Dooley, Senior Development Manager of Wind Prospect Developments Ltd introduced herself to the Committee.  She gave some background to the application.  She said that the original planning application had been submitted in January 2008 with further information being submitted in June 2010.  The application had been before the Planning Protective Services and Licensing Committee in February 2011 and she advised that a further addendum report had been circulated amongst Members addressing inaccuracies contained within the report by the Planning Authority which had stemmed from inaccuracies contained within the responses by SNH and the RSPB.  Ms Dooley gave some information on Government Policy and Targets with regard to emission reductions and renewable energy in the UK and in Scotland.  She gave an overview of the environmental benefits from the Kilchattan windfarm should it be approved.  She advised that in terms of material considerations no objections had been received in terms of historical environment, archaeology, hydrology and water quality, road safety and maintenance, noise and disturbance, health and safety, telecommunications and military and civil aviation.  She advised that objections had been received with regard to landscape and visuals and ornithology and that the recommendation for refusal by the Planning Authority had been based on these objections by SNH and the RSPB.  She advised that Wind Prospect refuted these objections and the recommendation by the Planning Authority.  With respect to landscape and visual impact Ms Dooley told the Committee that the proposal was not to be located within an area that has a landscape designation.  She advised that the site was in an area of panoramic quality but that the policy did not preclude development of wind farms.  She provided some APQ statistics stating that the windfarm would have 12.5% visibility from the land whilst the remainder of visibility would be from the sea.  With regard to the pattern of development she advised that the site was located within the upland forest moor mosaic landscape character type which had been the same as others that had been consented in the surrounding area and therefore it followed the established pattern of wind farm development in landscape character terms.  She advised that the scale of the project had been deliberately designed small and that the turbines to be used were between 25% and 35% smaller than others in the surrounding area. In connection with the claims made that the cumulative assessment had not been carried out properly, Sarah confirmed that all neighbouring  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.