2024 Election thread

Yeah just wondered why you bought up people being annoyed by them despite them being "at most 20m above ground".

Visual impact is minimal.

The one I posted earlier south of Edinburgh, which in all likelihood will be refused in fairness, but which is one of three co-pending applications in basically the same place, will be visible 30 miles away, which covers a population of about 1.5 million. It is manifestly different from a building that is in view for a few hundred feet.

I don't think it's fucked (although arguably Dartmoor is just what happens when you clear cut a forest and don't understand erosion), I just don't value redundant upland grazing land more than any other agricultural land just because the horizon is a bit further away. I also recognise that appreciation or dislike of tall structures in a landscape is entirely subjective. I quite like the pylons down the road. I also enjoy visiting the local worked out gravel pit with the waste incinerator chimney in the background. Older industrial structures like Pontcysyllte or Ribblehead are now tourist attractions.

Aa someone who works with the planning system every day, the idea that developers always get their way at the expense of the little people is just a very black joke.

The what you posted about earlier, are you back on turbines?

I'm not really following your point any more, your argument is flip flopping all over the place to whatever supports turbines not being built.

Depends on the price and whether there are alternatives. There aren't alternatives to housing. There are to new roads. There isn't to rail. There are alternatives to land use pressures from onshore wind.

The only merit of UK onshore wind is that it is currently cheaper. Both onshore and offshore are cheaper than alternatives such as nuclear. And many alternatives such as tidal stream are under exploited, meaning they appear more expensive than they would be if more common and benefiting from economies of scale.

This notion that there are vast swathes of otherwise useless moorland is nonsense. So is the concept that only the land it is on is affected. When a turbine is as high as the prominence of the hill it is on (e.g. the Chilterns from the Vale of the White Horse) it fundamentally changes the character of a region. And these things move. They aren't static new landscape features. They aren't buildings.

What England isn't quite ready for is that the commercial viability will be reliant on the largest turbines and large numbers of them in one place, not the modest ones you might see occasionally from a motorway.

And the threshold for them to be called in for Ed Milliband to make a snap decision is like a carrot at the end of a stick. There is a corresponding policy in Scotland and you no longer see proposals for 6 or 8 120m turbines, because if you propose 15 to 180m or 200m turbines, it bypasses local planning entirely.

I disagree that it is hard for developers in this field. There is something of a cut and paste about proposals, and the economics favour lots of them regardless of their individual merits. It's a bit like phishing. I've seen proposals in their fourth iteration, indistinguishable to a layman from the first, be approved because people think they've already objected. Developers intentionally time out so it resets as a brand new application and objections don't transfer.

For people affected - let's say by 5 or 6 in one area, each of which go through 2 or more iterations, it becomes like whackamole. And only developers can appeal. The process is like a referendum where only one side gets to keep asking the same question until they get the answer they want.

Sp cry me a river about how hard it is for the industry, when the system is totally one sided.

There's something in that. Would be nice to retire in Europe somewhere, but the numpties made that a lot harder.

Yes. See above - impact from moving white structures as high as the Chilterns extends more widely.

Fwiw for housing, I will be affected. There is bound to be lots of infill development nearby on what used to be nurseries and farms. I'm not going to object.

The planning applications need to show where they will be seen from. It is a planning consideration, presumably for a reason. So not just me.

Yup, and landscape impacts are a material planning consideration that planning officers are required to take into account.

Don't shoot the messenger.

See above the list of about 300 in a smaller area of southern Scotland.

That's not going to happen in Southern England I don't think, but it absolutely will in the north - most likely the NE or unprotected parts of the Pennines.

Brilliant.

God I would love to have access to something like that to row on.

Just the same.

I like it.

Says the man who unashamedly dislikes rural places and has never been to Scotland. They don't like them there. Wonder why.