Public Meeting

This took place on the evening of 18th April ’07 at the Community Centre in North Walsham. Approximately 50 people attended.

Hetty Selwyn introduced the meeting which had been kindly sponsored by the Griffon Area Partnership. She explained that the turbines were the first practical project to be undertaken by the North Norfolk Environment Forum. She encouraged people to join the Forum and stressed that this project was heavily linked to the community and that funding for diverse local projects would come from the profits. Profits would also give a return to local investors.

Andy Hilton of Windpower Renewables then spoke about the plight of the world in the face of an ever increasing demand for power and the urgent need to obtain more power from renewable sources to meet that demand. A graphic demonstration of this escalation was shown on the screen.

Andy has extensive wind power expertise and the Forum is lucky to have him onboard to motivate and to guide. There are many pitfalls en route to completion of the project.

Andy talked us through a powerpoint presentation showing the history and evolution of wind power. The timetable of progression of the project was explained.

Andy then showed photomontages of how the turbines are likely to look. (see photo gallery). He played a recording that he had made with his camcorder positioned directly below a large turbine to demonstrate that modern turbines are inaudible compared to the natural background sounds. Andy suggested that if the project was successful then other larger wind developments by major power companies were unlikely to be considered appropriate in the area.

He also suggested that EDF Energy may be lenient with connection charges for the project as the turbines would be helping to reinforce the grid in North Walsham.

Simon Brocklehurst then said a few words about the website. It would be a long time before power and therefore income was generated and that it was important to have a communication channel to keep everybody informed of progress. Voting and commenting via the website - so that the Forum could get a feeling of local reaction - was encouraged, and the ability to register financial interest in the project on-line was also highlighted. Simon admitted placing a ‘NO’ vote himself on the website so that those wanting to oppose the turbines would not feel isolated. (This false vote has now been removed!)

Hetty then led a question and answer session. Simon said that he had used the most recent census data to calculate that the turbines would provide enough power for more than half of the homes in North Walsham. Power usage by businesses in North Walsham was not known and therefore could not be used as a comparison.

Reservations were expressed concerning the proximity of the turbines to housing - especially with regard to noise. Andy took great pains to be reassuring about this issue and described the very minimal noise that the servos make - noticeable on a very calm day - in turning the turbines into the wind. Actual rotational noise was again stated to be virtually inaudible. There is a requirement for turbine noise to be no more than 45db at 100m - equivalent to the noise level in a quite bedroom.

There was a query as to whether it was appropriate to consider using the land on the other side of the A149 in order to distance the turbines more from housing. This issue has been taken on-board by the Forum and investigations will be carried out to see if this would be a more considerate solution. Re-negotiation with the alternative landowners will be necessary (comments from landowners to the south of the A149 would be welcome!) There would be no problem in running the necessary cable under the A149 to tie in with the grid connection.

There were several supportive comments made openly during the meeting and the overall feeling was welcoming and approving of the project.

Hettie called a break for refreshments and discussions continued at a personal level.