Visual impact
One of the most significant aspects of wind farms is the devastating impact they have on the visual environment. Where once we enjoyed a landscape shaped by farming and other rural activities, we will have to accept an industrial aspect to our environment.
It is worth remembering that the turbines planned by Broadview for Low Spinney are significantly bigger than all but a handful of turbines in the UK - they represent a technology leap, and planning and noise legislation have yet to catch up with them. The turbines at Burton Wold (on the A14) are about two thirds the size of the ones proposed for Low Spinney. If you would like to see what these monsters really look like, you need to visit North Pickenham near Swaffham.
In a stunning piece of hypocrisy, the British Wind Energy Association (the trade and lobbying body for wind farm developers) recommend that off-shore wind farms be built a minimum distance of 8 km from the coast so that they appear very small. No such minimum distance exists for onshore wind turbines.
This is what the turbines will probably look like from Gilmorton Lodge:
More can be seen by visiting our Visual Impact Gallery
One of the massive turbines of the Black Law windfarm in South Lanarkshire, ScotlandThis is a duplicate of a Digital Negative taken on a Nikon D2X camera, with a Sigma 50-500mm f/4-6.3EX DG HSM lens, of one of the 42 massive turbines at Blacklaw Wind Farm, which rise to a height of 110 metres to the tip of the blades. The picture was taken from a distance of about 4/5th of a mile from the village centre of Forth on the B7016 road looking NW.
This is 15m SMALLER than the turbines intended for Low Spinney