Date: 25^th January 2006

  

Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP

Secretary of State

C/0 Offshore Renewables Consent Unit

Bay 2117

Department of Trade and Industry

LG52

1 Victoria Street

LONDON

SW1H OET

 

Re: Gwynt-y-Mor Offshore Wind Farm Planning Application

 

I write as chair of the Save Our Scenery group to register our formal objections to the Gwynt-y-Mor Offshore Wind Farm proposal.

 

We are a group of local residents of Llandudno, Penrhyn Bay, Rhos-on -Sea and Colwyn Bay formed to protect the Heritage Coastline of North Wales, its tourist industry and its principal resort Llandudno.

 

Our objections are set out in the document entitled 'Statement of Objections.' It is supported by an almost 5,000 strong petition of objectors to the proposal. We are aware that many objectors have already written to you and we are also sending in a separate box a further 831 letters of objection to the proposal. We have included with these, emails, which have been received, via our website.

 

We have examined in detail the developer's proposals as set out in their Environmental Statement and accompanying papers. The documents and the proposals they contain are flawed, imbalanced and misleading. They underestimate the development's impact on the local economy and under score the environmental impact on the Heritage Coastline and on Llandudno. They exaggerate the benefits of Gwynt-y-Mor's contribution to emissions reductions. The developer's case in the documentation does not accurately reflect local public feedback with regard to Gwynt-y-Mor and this raises serious ethical considerations.

 

It is clear from our examination of the developer's case that the developer fails to provide an EIA within the meaning of the term. We believe the proposal does not comply with your requirement for complete information showing both negative and positive aspects of the development. It does not comply with European Union guidelines on impact assessment and it falls far below what can reasonably be expected in accountability terms in social, economic and environmental reporting by a large multi-national company.

 

We ask you to reject this application on the basis of the objections we have set out in our accompanying Statement of Objection.

 

As a group of residents, we have prepared our statement of objections in the difficult context of the Christmas and New Year recess. As you will recall, a formal request for an extension of time was made but this has not been forthcoming. In view of this, we would ask you to give sympathetic consideration to any further submissions we bring forward to support our objections after the 27th January.  We understand from John Overton that just such a sympathetic extension has been granted to Conwy County Borough Council.

 

In the event of a public enquiry we would request the opportunity to make a presentation and to support this with further information should the need arise.

 

With this letter we have included a checklist of items sent to you. Would you please arrange for this to be checked and signed by yourself to evidence safe arrival of the items we have dispatched to you.

 

Should you require any further information regarding our Statement of Objections please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

 

John Lawson-Reay                                      

Chair