Earlier this week I welcomed the withdrawal of the planning application to build wind turbines at Eadestown (between Naas and Blessington). This proposal came on the table out of nowhere in June and it has now vanished again without trace.
It caused considerable concern and alarm amongst the local community and it was feared it would be the start of an entire belt of wind turbines stretching from Kilteel through Eadestown and into Ballymore Eustace areas. Credit to the local group, Eadestown Against Spin, who mobilised rapidly and got organised and led the charge in raising serious concerns on the plans.
My main issue with these proposals was that they came in a total vacuum of planning guidance, at local and national level there are projects underway to agree best practice on these and address issues such as noise, height, setback and shadow flicker. My objection to the application can be read here.
I brought a motion to the council meeting in June to suspend planning on these projects until those guidelines could be agreed as I felt it was premature to consider such colossal and long lived structures while guidelines were still in draft. I would have a major concern as well that the market for these turbines has effectively collapsed with the export deal to UK off the table and rural communities should not become the playing fields for wind energy developers with surplus kit to install.
The withdrawal of this planning application will bring relief to the local community – I hope the same parameters will apply to any future wind turbine projects at any other location in county Kildare. The entire regulatory, legal, technical and community frameworks for these projects needs to stabilise before these projects should be considered for planning.