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Village rallies against turbine plans
b13-155 Ravensden wind turbine meeting held at village hall.
The village of Ravensden gathered for a public meeting last night to express their shock about plans for a giant wind turbine.
Nearly 200 residents attended the meeting at Ravensden Village Hall as well as borough and parish councillors.
Representatives from Offgrid Power, a Northamptonshire-based company which has submitted the application, also attended the meeting to be quizzed by concerned villagers.
The evening began with Bedford Borough councillor for Ravensden Stephen Moon reading a message of support for residents from Alistair Burt MP, who could not attend on the night. The meeting then heard a speech from resident Kathryn Watts who lives close to the site and has done research into the impact of the turbine, which would stand nearly four times the height of the Angel Of The North.
She said: “Offgrid Power can’t promise you which turbine they would site here. They try to play down the noise by suggesting its like a constantly ticking clock.
“If we set aside the irritation of a ticking clock, and whether you’d be prepared to hear one in your garden, the claim doesn’t seem to match the consultants warnings and experiences elsewhere of the roar of blades which are planned to be almost 60m across and the sound of the mechanism let alone the way the noise would carry on the wind.”
She added: “We’re not a community of NIMBYs we know about going green – we have our own recycling and compost plant here – but we want our green technologies to work.
“The UK has experienced its lowest wind speeds for centuries since 2010 so if this isn’t about effective wind farming is it about subsidy farming?”
To read a full report of the meeting, and to find out what questions residents put to Offgrid Power pick up your copy of Thursday’s T&C
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Weather for Bedford
Saturday 18 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 6 C to 14 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 9 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North east
