Plans for a wind farm in Rhondda Cynon Taf which it's claimed could power more than 15,000 homes are set to be discussed by councillors, but it will be up to a planning inspector to make a final decision. The application for the wind farm with seven turbines on land at Mynydd y Glyn, to the east of Trebanog, with a capacity of 30 MegaWatts (MW) and the potential to power 15,376 houses is due to go before the council’s planning committee on Thursday, June 22.
The Pennant Walters Ltd application is said to be a development of national significance as the generating capacity would exceed 10 MegaWatts (MW) - the turbine hubs would stand almost as high as Wales' tallest residential building - the Meridian Tower in Swansea.
Because of the nature of the proposal, a decision on it lies outside of the council’s jurisdiction and instead with Planning and Environment Decisions Wales (PEDW). The recommendation is that the committee approves the council’s local impact report, which the council is required to submit, and that this is then sent to PEDW to help the appointed Welsh Government inspector make a decision on the application.
The construction period would be around two years and the wind farm has been designed with an operational life of 30 years. At the end of this period it would be shut down, dismantled and removed from the site. The turbines would have a diameter of up to 136m, a hub height of up to 97.5m and a maximum blade tip height of 155m. The Meridian Tower in Swansea Marina stands at 107 metres tall.
The planning report said the site lay within the Mynydd y Glyn and Nant Muchudd Basin Special Landscape Area (SLA) and that elements also fell within the Trebanog Slopes and Mynydd y Glyn Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC).
It said the site was partially located within the Rhondda Historic Landscape Area and areas of the Rhos Tonyrefail Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) were located directly to the south. The site was crossed by several high risk areas in respect of historic underground coal mining and there were areas of potentially contaminated land on site, the report said.
The report added that the site was also crossed by several public rights of way and the entire site was a Sandstone Resource Area. In assessing the application, the council’s planning officers said that, while the site was located outside of any of the Welsh Government’s PAAs (pre-assessed areas) for large-scale wind energy development, FW2040 (Future Wales: The National Plan 2040) allowed for such development outside of these areas providing the scheme complied with relevant planning policy.
It said: “It is considered the proposed development will have a negative impact on the landscape in visual terms and to the outlook of the closest residents, although it is accepted that this is a subjective issue. In all other key respects, such as residential amenity, highway safety and ecology, it is considered appropriate mitigation can be implemented that would ensure there is no more than a neutral impact.”
“Given that, the adverse impacts in this case which will likely be the key determining factors for the PEDW Inspector are considered to be mostly related to visual impact, which is subjective.” The report advised members to offer no objections to the content of the council’s local impact report.
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