Wind Turbines SPD and Emerging Policy
Consultation
The Council carried out a consultation on the Draft Wind Turbines Supplementary Planning Document and Emerging Policy. The consultation ran for an 8 week period from Thursday 2 February 2012 until 5pm Wednesday 28 March.
Consultation Documents
The Supplementary Planning Document and Emerging Policy is available to view, along with the "Supporting Documents Paper" which contains the Statement of Matters, the Consultation Statement, an evidence document and the Sustainability Appraisal.
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Draft Wind Turbines SPD and Emerging Policy
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Wind Turbines SPD Supporting Documents Paper
View comments
Comments made during the consultation period can be viewed by clicking 'Who said what?' in the top right hand corner on the consultation portal.
Consultation Portal
Purpose
The purpose of the Wind Turbines Supplementary Planning Document and Emerging Policy is to provide increased protection of residential amenity, as well as pedestrians and horse riders.
Background
The initial request for an update of wind turbines planning policy came from Parish Councillors. A report was taken to Development Control Committee on 16 June 2011 which recommended that is was not necessary to produce any additional guidance. The item was deferred at the request of the Members of the committee so that the report could be sent to Parish Councillors for information. The report was sent to all Parish Councils on 21 June 2011; they were given until 8 August 2011 to respond with any comments. Comments received were reported to the Cabinet Member along with officer responses.
A further report was taken to the Development Control Committee on 13 October 2011 (including details of the comments received, together with the Officer responses). It recommended that, due to the government’s intention to replace all National Planning Policy Statements and Guidance notes (PPSs and PPGs) with the National Planning Policy Framework, an SPD be produced to prevent the loss of the relevant information contained within the PPSs/PPGs and their associated Guidance documents. The Development Control Committee resolved to produce an SPD based on a model SPD submitted by a Castlethorpe Parish Councillor and be taken to the next available Cabinet meeting (December 2011)(you can read the report and minutes of the meeting at:
Item 8 DCC 13 October 2011).
Evidence was gathered and an SPD and interim policy were produced for a meeting of the Cabinet on 20 December 2011. The cabinet report recommended that a separation distance of 800m from settlements be carried forward into the interim policy within the SPD. However, the Council resolved to carry forward a separation distance of 1000m from all dwellings into the interim policy (together with some changes to the document) (the report and minutes of the meeting can be seen at
Item 9 Cabinet 20 December 2011).
Following the December Cabinet meeting, the decision was called in by a group of 20 residents. This resulted in the item being taken back to a further meeting of the Cabinet on 17 January 2012. Further representations were received from a Castlethorpe Parish Councillor prior to the January meeting. The policy within the SPD was reconsidered and revised as a result of these representations. It is this version that has been issued for consultation as a result of the resolution made by Cabinet in January 2012 (the report and minutes of the meeting can be viewed at
Item 7 Cabinet 17 January 2012).
Strategic Environmental Assessment
An SEA Screening Report was produced and sent to the statutory bodies to assess the requirement for a Strategic Environmental Assessment of the draft SPD. Assessment showed that SEA was required, so a scoping report was produced and sent to the statutory bodies. Comments received at the scoping stage were incorporated and a full SEA was carried out and made available at the meeting of the Cabinet on 20 December 2012.
