Appendix 2 – Letter from the East Hampshire Area of Outstanding Beauty East Hampshire AONB Office Queen Elizabeth Country Park Gravel Hill Area of Waterlooville Hampshire P08 OQE Outstanding Natural Beauty Telephone: (023) 9259 1362 EAST HAMPSHIRE Fax: (023) 9259 2409 Mobile: 07710 590863 E-mail:
[email protected] FAO Guy Riddoch East Hampshire District Council Penns Place Petersfield Hampshire GU34 11 February 2004 Dear Sir Petersfield Project for Integrated Renewable Energy Deployment – Wind Turbine on Butser Hill As a follow up to the report by Econergy on the results of the Petersfield Study, it has come to our attention in the EHAONB office that your Council’s Development Panel will be considering a report that includes a proposal to erect a single wind turbine on top of the South Downs, possibly on Butser Hill. As I have yet to see the agenda I cannot confirm this myself, but in the meantime I have been asked by members of the Planning Panel to write and inform of their concerns on such a proposal. The East Hampshire Joint Advisory Committee is fully supportive of the Government's policy to promote the growth of renewable energy production, and welcomes the general thrust of the draft policy document PPS 22. However, as pointed out to the ODPM's office, whilst renewable energy schemes can bring undoubted benefits, they can also have undesirable impacts that need to be balanced against these general benefits. The Planning Panel have asked me to clarify that a single wind turbine comparable to size of the ones erected at Swaffham in Norfolk would be extremely prominent and intrusive if located on Butser Hill.