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Visual Impact
The proposed developments will have an enormous visual impact on the area.
The main tower is 80M high and the total height 130M including the blades. The nacelle is the section on top of the tower that contains the gearing to create the electricity. This can be the size of a double decker bus and will have to have bright red lights on top to warn aircraft.
There has been much research concerning the visual impact of wind turbines. They are far more intrusive, for example, than electricity pilons because of their height, width, solidity, and the fact that peoples attention is automatically drwan to movement. Given that the 50M blades will be moving at up to 150mph at the tips they will certainly be hard to ignore.
To see if your property could, according to PFR's environmental assessment, be affected click here.
Then there is the flicker effect created as the blades move between the sun and peoples houses. The environmental assessment includes details of who will be affected and how often. More details on who could be affected by this this here.
WARNING : The mock-up above is an example of the sort of images PFR will be presenting to planners. They are very wide angle shots of the landscape covering 180 degrees. The way these images should be viewed is several inches from your eyes and wrapped around the front of your head to simulate a 180 degree view. However, these tend to be presented to the public glued to either a flat wall or a horizontal surface. If you are shown images of this type ask how they should be viewed. For a more detailed discussion of this and some examples of the methods developers use to minimise the claimed visual impact take a look at the document found by clicking here.
Look at how, in the image above, both the viewpoint and the angle of the turbine blades have been chosen to give the least alarming view possible. Imagine waht th eview woul dbe like 10 feet further forwards, from the house in the picture, or from the byway approximately halfway between the house and the turbine.
The Carters Hill and Arborfield areas are very open. The M4 and Lower Early can't be seen from here or vice versa. The 130 metre high turbines will be higly visible. Also, much of Lower Earley is on hillside and much is not surrounded by tall trees.
As you can see from the 2 mock-ups below the views from some areas, including peoples back gardens, will be significant.
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