Partnerships for Renewables (PfR) has submitted an amendment to its planning application for two turbines at Camp Hill prison, which moves the closest turbine to nearby properties to a new location closer to the prison and further away from the majority of nearby homes.
Further Environmental Information (FEI) has been submitted to Isle of Wight Council to make the change, following additional background noise monitoring requested by the Council. The nearest house will now be over 500m distant from the turbine, with the nearest home on Noke Common (the closest street) at around 650m distance – up from around 450m with the original turbine location.
The planning application for two wind turbines on Ministry of Justice land at the Camp Hill site was originally submitted in May 2012 and is expected to be determined by Isle of Wight Council’s Planning Committee in October.
Partnerships for Renewables is working in partnership with Isle of Wight turbine manufacturer, Vestas, which will see the company’s turbines installed on the site, with the blades potentially manufactured locally on the island. Vestas is also looking at using the turbines as a test site for technological innovation.
Rob Sauven, Managing Director of Vestas Technology, added:
“We are delighted to put our support to PfR’s project on the Island. A keen topic of discussion at the pre-application consultation events was our intention to partner with PfR, not just in providing our turbines, but also in using the site as a test facility to assist with our research and development work at West Medina Mills. This development will provide a huge boost to the Isle of Wight’s eco credentials and we very much hope that the revised application succeeds in winning the support of the local community and their political representatives.”
The two proposed turbines would have a combined generating capacity of between 4 and 6 megawatts, depending on the turbine model used. Assuming 2MW Vestas machines were built, the turbines would be expected to generate around 8.75 gigawatt hours (GWh) of green electricity per year, powering the equivalent of 2,000 homes over the course of a year*.
In line with the recent and announcement from Government that it would like to see level of £5,000 /MW/year become the future industry standard for Community Benefit, PfR has responded by increasing the proposed community benefit for the Camp Hill project to this level. With total installed capacity of 4MW, the site would therefore provide a community benefit fund of £20,000 per year index linked (double the previous amount of £10,000) to be spent on community initiatives decided independently by representatives of the local community. Over the projected operational lifetime of the project, this would amount to at least £500,000.
