Decision details

The Committee considered a report by the Head of Environmental Health and Housing (circulated previously) regarding an update on the current position in relation to the Batsworthy Cross windfarm.

The Service Lead – Environmental Protection highlighted the following:

·         The special meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 7^th March 2019 had examined in detail the Council’s regulation of the planning consent relating to Batsworthy Cross windfarm.  The Committee had requested that this subject be added as a standing item to all future agenda of the Executive (now the Strategy and Resources Committee).

·         Monitoring undertaken by the Operator had confirmed non-compliance at 1 of the 6 monitoring locations resulting in them implementing a mitigation strategy in an attempt to reduce the noise levels in this location.  The success of this mitigation strategy had recently been assessed by the Council by undertaking its own noise monitoring exercise and results confirmed a continuing exceedance of the noise limits in this location.

·         The Operator recently advised the Council that in their view, they had now collected sufficient noise data to support a full analysis of the situation and had submitted their detailed report.  This report was now in the process of being independently evaluated by officer’s and the Council’s own acoustic adviser.  The outcome would be presented to at a future Committee.