A recent interesting article from Motvind, a non-profit environmental consultancy that specializes in helping local communities to understand, and oppose, grid scale wind farm developments. The issues raised are certainly pertinent to the proposed wind power developments around Straiton.

There are two components to “safe set-back distances”: the threat to the health of both humans and livestock, and the Health and Safety requirements on the part of Highway Regulations. The latter is more easily dealt with and clearer: a safe distance for a wind turbine from a public highway is the blade-tip height plus 50 metres.

The threat to human health, psychological well-being and community coherence is more controversial, largely because research into the effects of industrial wind turbines has had to be reactive to the original claims and distortions of turbine manufacturers and developers. Governments accepted these claims and inadequate acoustic standards so did not impose or even recommend safe set-back distances between turbines and residences, whether for humans or livestock.

Since the turbines went up evidence has steadily accrued from medical experts world-wide, from local authorities, overseas governments, surveyors, and acoustic consultants all recommending safe precautionary distances. It has been the research into infrasound, inaudible to humans but experienced viscerally, which originated with Defence Studies then moved into research commissioned by responsible bodies into its impact upon health, sleep and depression, which has alarmed Health Authorities. Research is also now emerging about Amplitude Modulation in audible and inaudible noise, which again developers denied.

The main conclusions of this research are that:

• All wind turbines cause it.
• Heightened Noise Zones are created (HNZs).
• As readings gain distance, low frequency waves begin to dominate at 1 km plus.
• Erratic and sudden changes in frequency levels, which add to the psycho-acoustic annoyance
• Multiple arrays add to the noise levels, and the range of low frequency impact.
• Developers now accept that a 3dB level should have applied, rather than the 10-20 dB, which they have hitherto invoked as safe! As a result, the World Health Organisation has extended its definition of Public Health to include “social well-being,” to safeguard against the distress, annoyance and social disunity provoked by wind farms in particular. Public Health authorities in the UK have not yet responded.

Local authorities in the UK have struggled to protect their residents against central planning diktats. Some have tried to introduce a set-back distance of between 1.5 and 2km, others have tried to set up zones away from homes. Overseas, the range is between 2km and 3.2km. Surveyors recommend 1.6km, scientific acoustic consultants recommend 2km, the same as the Renewable Energy Foundation.

Different authorities and tiers of government have attempted various strategies to limit the powers of developers, who use their government policy backing to frustrate democratic processes. In Denmark, developers have to compensate residents for any falls in their property value. In Texas and Australia developers can be sued for both loss of property values and threats to their health and amenities. Here in the UK government action has been more timid, with only local attempts to constrain turbines to brown-field sites or limited zones. The new government in Australia is threatening to introduce legislation, (based on the mis-selling of bank products) that would give retrospective compensation to residents from developers.