No farm at Ferndale

Energy giant E.ON no longer intends to develop an eight turbine wind farm near Ferndale in the UK because of concerns that the project’s original design could potentially pose a noise nuisance to nearby homes.

Site investigation revealed that any revised designs to eliminate noise issues would result in a project that would not be big enough to meet the company’s criteria for wind farm developments.

The proposed 10MW project, which was being developed jointly with local community group the Arts Factory, originally received planning consent in 2005.

'We certainly didn’t take this decision lightly but, as a responsible developer, we simply wouldn’t be willing to build a scheme that we thought had the potential to exceed acceptable noise limits,' said Danny Shaw, Head of New Business for E.ON.

'We’ve looked at a number of solutions to make this project work but, ultimately, we’ve determined that the largest scheme possible for the site would be under 5MW, which is not big enough to meet our criteria for new onshore wind developments,' he added.