NINE villages furious at a developer's bid to build a £5 million wind farm in the heart of rural Suffolk have called for the project to be scrapped.

John Howard

NINE villages furious at a developer's bid to build a £5 million wind farm in the heart of rural Suffolk have called for the project to be scrapped.

Mid Suffolk District Council had already allowed a 70-metre high wind monitoring mast at Wyverstone, near Stowmarket, and this has now led to an application for two 130-metre high turbines which would provide electricity to more than 3,600 homes.

But parish councils at nine villages have opposed the development: Bacton, Badwell Ash, Cotton, Elmswell, Finningham, Great Ashfield, Wetherden, Westhorpe and Wyverstone.

John Bean, parish council clerk at Wyverstone, said the turbines were too close to residents' homes.

Andrew Catchpole, Westhorpe Parish Council clerk, said it was a tranquil area and any additional noise from the wind turbines would be unwelcome.

At Cotton, villagers fear the wind farm would seriously scar the landscape, and at Wetherden people are concerned that their already patchy television reception, which is on the fringe between the Tacolneston and Sudbury transmitters, could deteriorate still further.

Stop Wyverstone Wind farm Action Group (SWWAG) is fighting the proposed development, which is in the Potash Lane area, and said that the turbines would be as high as the London Eye.

Dr Neil Macey, a Stowmarket GP and SWWAG's chairman, said: “No-one has actively supported this amongst the parish councils. We are thrilled with the opposition.

“We are so pleased that other people are seeing this for what it is, it is a bad application, an inappropriate development, in an inappropriate site. We are hopeful that the right decision will be made.”

Andy Hilton, managing director of Norfolk-based Wind Power Renewables, which is behind the project, said last night: “We think this is still an ideal location and wind speeds are fantastic. The met mast been taken down now and we are over the moon with the wind speed readings.

“We understand that people are concerned, but we have answered all their questions in our work preparing for the application.”

A spokeswoman for Mid Suffolk District Council said planners have yet to reach a decision on the wind farm, and expect to do so by January 26.