Quadruple success for The Landmark Practice – 3 more wind turbines at Avonmouth Docks. The new turbines will sit close to the Port Company’s three iconic wind turbines.
TheLandmark Practice’s role
This is the fourth wind energy scheme at Avonmouth and The Landmark Practice has managed the technical assessment of all four. As well as the Avonmouth Docks schemes, Landmark has also managed the applications for two 3 MW turbines for Bristol City Council on a disused oil depot on the shores of the Severn Estuary, granted consent in January 2009, and for four 3 MW turbines for Wessex Water, granted in March 2009, to be built at the Bristol Sewage Works beside the M49.
Collectively, these twelve wind turbines will generate the output of a moderately sized wind farm, and will make a significant contribution to the South West Region’s renewable energy targets.
Environmental Impacts
Monitoring of the effect of the existing turbines at Avonmouth Docks, which have been operating since 2007, provided practical experience of the effects of wind generation on the environment, local people and businesses.
As with the other consented wind schemes at Avonmouth, the key challenges to the scheme were found to be the risk that the turbines could disturb birds using the internationally important Severn Estuary and Filton airfield radar.
Landmark’s technical assessment shows that such effects are avoidable, and The Bristol Port Company has agreed to implement specific measures to protect the environment. On 13 October 2010 Bristol City Council’s North Area Planning Committee agreed to grant approval to the project, subject to officers finalising outstanding details.
