REASSURANCES have been made there are no plans to build wind farms on Cambridgeshire County Council-owned land despite a rash of proposals for turbines on private land in Huntingdonshire

Council leader Nick Clarke told members at a full council meeting last week that there were no proposals for wind farms on county farm land or any land owned by the council were in the pipeline ‘for the foreseeable future’.

His comments were welcomed by fellow Councillor Peter Reeve, who argued current government planning policy forces local authorities to approve wind farm applications, even in the face of local protest.

Cllr Clarke said: “I can give you assurance that we are not mindful to be building any wind farms on county farm land or any land that we own at the moment or for the foreseeable future.”

More than 30 wind turbines have been proposed within a 15-mile stretch of west Huntingdonshire.

In the past year planning applications for wind farms have been considered for Kimbolton, Graveley, and Woolley Hill.

More applications are expected for Bythorn and Molesworth, and Highfield Farm, Perry, and for four new wind turbines at the site of an existing one in St Mary’s Road, Ramsey.

Developers Fivestone Ltd, who are behind the Ramsey turbines, are appealing for people to voice their opinions. A competition was run on Saturday (July 23) at the Ramsey Party on the Field event to name the new structures.

Cllr Reeve said: “I have been surprised by the lack of opposition in Ramsey to these turbines. The developers are working quite closely with the local community, and off-setting some of the potential damage through unilateral undertaking.

“The other probable reason for a lack of wider opposition is because there is already one there.”

An application for a four-turbine farm near Kimbolton was turned down by Huntingdonshire District Council in January.

Stop Bicton Wind Farm group is holding an open meeting on Friday evening in advance of the start on August 16 of an appeal by Broadview Energy.

The campaigners say the developers’ new evidence to the inquiry inspector shows that the proposed turbines would generate “significant effects” on one-third of the historic core of Kimbolton, 38 per cent of the rest of the village, 50 per cent of homes in Stow Longa, more than half the homes in Tilbrook, three-quarters of other homes within one to two km of the development and every home within one km.

The protesters’ public meeting will be held at the Queen Katherine Building in Kimbolton School on Friday, starting at 7.30pm.

The public inquiry, at HDC’s Pathfinder House headquarters in Huntingdon, is expected to last for two weeks.