The Need For An Environmental Impact Assessment

The Crida web documentation states the level of impact is insufficient to warrant a full Environmental Impact Assessment and that the level of environmental information proposed in the screening report is appropriate. This is clearly not the case. When the county’s ‘flagship’ riding, walking and cycling scenic tourist path under threat, described as stretching through ‘Shropshire’s most beautiful and unspoilt countryside’ to discover the county’s ‘secret treasures’, the council have a civic duty to carry out a full ‘Environmental Impact Assessment’ due to what is known in planning law as ‘cumulative impact’. Ever since Crida’s scoping proposal at Upton Cressett was first announced, there has emerged clear and undisputed evidence of additional wind farm development planned close by which would certainly affect the landscape in a ‘significant’ way. This level of impact requires a full EIA.

This must take into account the important economic and environmental factors – Jack Mytton Way, Scheduled Monuments, local heritage, Grade 1 and Grade II* listed buildings, historic setting and landscape, impact on local tourism, damage to protected wildlife – that Sharenergy have omitted to mention (other than the raptor) in their woefully inadequate proposal which claims to represent the ‘community’. If planning permission is granted, more turbines around Upton Cressett and the Morville hills area are already in the pipe line, turning into a Golgotha of wind farms. This has to be taken into account.

The Dept of Communities and Local Government states in its guidance on the requirement for an Environmental Impact Assessment that this is required where the hub height exceeds 15metres and the impact is significant. On these conditions an assessment is required as, in addition to the impact on heriatge, local tourism and landscape, the industrial scale of the towers, the extent of foundations, and the work required to transport and erect the turbines plus ongoing environmental hazards such as noise indicate a significant impact. [Source: Department of Communities and Local Government - Environmental Impact Assessment: A guide to procedures Appendix 3]