THERE’S encouraging news this week for the mounting number of campaigners in Cumbria who are determined not to allow inland parts of the county to become the wind farm capital of the country.

In view of the increased number of applications for wind turbine developments which are being submitted to Cumbria’s planning authorities, communities which are threatened with wind farms on their doorsteps have banded together to form a united front in the shape of the Strategic Alliance Against Lakeland Turbines (SALT).

And following their first meeting at Keswick School the campaigners will take great heart from our front page story on the knockout blow administered to the plans for a three-turbine wind farm at Hoff Moor, near Appleby.

The Planning Inspectorate has supported Eden Council’s view that the wind farm would have had an unacceptable impact on the wider landscape and has rejected an appeal by the developer against the refusal of planning permission. It means that the Hoff Moor proposals go the same way as the controversial Whinash wind farm plans, also blown off course at appeal.

Decisions have still to be made on three wind farm applications in areas of Eden, namely nine turbines at Berrier, nine at Grise, near Skelton, and five at Lamonby (plans for a wind park near Shap appear to have disappeared off the radar in view of the furore they attracted), so the campaigners still have much work to do.

But they received some strong ammunition in a telling comment from the inspector who delivered the verdict on the Hoff Moor scheme, Robert Hiscox. He said he considered it was the combination of local landscape and visual harm which outweighed the benefit of wind farms contributing towards national and regional targets for the production of renewable energy.

This is the issue that is at the centre of all planning applications for wind farms bordering on the Lake District national park, the Eden Valley and other areas of outstanding natural beauty. Residents in general realise the harm that wind farms will do to the spectacular landscape of which we are merely custodians for future generations, and it’s time that the developers looked to offshore developments to generate the amount of electricity the Government says has to be produced from renewable sources. The Government can play its part, too, by sending a signal that wind farm development has not to be at the expense of the countryside. Lay off Cumbria, please.