Menwith Hill

Some thirty miles away however, work recently started on the Knabs Ridge wind farm. The site, six miles east of Harrogate, is a balk of land lying between the A59 Skipton Road and Pennypot Lane, with planning permission for eight wind turbines.To date, six of the concrete bases have been laid and the base sections of the tubular towers are on site.

wind madness video

The difference here however is that the view from the site is, and has been for some time, blighted by the alien appearance of the Menwith Hill intelligence station. People travelling between Harrogate and Skipton will have huge white golfballs on one side and swirling blades on the other. It is not prime agricultural land, conversely, the land is poor quality grassland with a mixture of scrub and wetland grasses and very few trees. It is elevated moorland with an open aspect due east.

The prevailing wind appears to blow from the east and the persistence brought a freshness to the cheeks! Every possibility of achieving 30% of design output.There did not appear to be any class 1listed buildings in the area and no signs of any conservation areas.

The A59 is quite a busy trunk road but in no way can it be compared to the complex road system near Darrington with an excess of 60,000 movements per day. On the A59 speeding motorists are a bigger threat than potential distraction. It is obvious that upland sites such as Knabs Ridge could readily be described as acceptable for wind farm development and clearly shows that our campaign to protect the Went Edge is fully justified because of the totally unacceptable conditions that prevail on Westfield Lane.

The downside of this analysis however is that sites like Knabs Ridge lie awfully close to National Parks and do we really want to see the National Parks of Great Britain encircled with a ring of steel?