THE LETTER from the Dean Community Energy Group raises the issue of a renewable energy policy for Lydney. The policy that the author refers to was in fact guidance to members of our planning committee approved by full council last year.

The town council has no current planning polices as it is only a consultee about planning issues. Fortunately, the Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) will have a role in planning and can adopt policies and the document has been revised to take on board further public responses and the latest guidance from government.

It has to conform to all government policies and is not a thinly veiled attempt to curb renewable energy. Far from doing so the scheme welcomes renewable energy and builds on Lydney's tradition in this area. What is does do is set reasonable parameters for the scale and location of large industrial scale wind turbines and solar arrays.

This is based on the terrific anxiety created in north Lydney and Aylburton by large industrial-scale developments.

Present planning policy and access to the grid has limited where wind turbines can be located and developers have increasingly concentrated on a band of land between the River Severn and the Forest.

The recent application at Alvington Court was rejected by local people, the parish council and the district council. The balance between the means by which renewable energy is produced and preserving heritage, land­scape and the enjoyment of people's homes need to be considered.

Most people welcomed appropriate solar solutions on domestic properties and schemes that were genuinely community-based. At the other end of the scale large wind turbine schemes were inevitably a product of entrepreneurs telling people what they thought was best for them and with local people getting a small return.

The policy tries to balance these views and the NDP is committed to sustainable transport solutions and making Lydney homes as energy-efficient as possible.

These are more important ambitions that make the Neighbourhood Development Plan a solution for a genuinely sustainable Lydney.

The Dean Community Energy Group should be careful not to represent the interests of developers and entrepreneurs making vast profits from renewables and ensure that schemes that ordinary people are willing and keen to support are taken forward.

The NDP policy encourages this.

– Cllr Alan Preest, Lydney.