I NOTE with interest the issues surrounding proposals for wind turbines in the Coleford area.

As a result of a petition containing over 450 names from around the Lydney North/West Dean area I tabled a motion for the December 2, 2010 Forest council meeting.

The crux of the motion was to ensure that the Forest of Dean District Council developed appropriate planning policy guidance which protected areas of high landscape and amenity value and included minimum distance criteria between wind turbines and sensitive land uses such as residential dwellings, public rights of way and roads. As a benchmark I had based the suggestion for policy guidance on policies already held in place by Torridge District Council in Devon and another council in Cumbria.

Prior to the meeting I was asked by the then council leader Peter Amos to withdraw my motion. In return, at the commencement of the meeting he gave myself, the public at the meeting and members, an assurance that the then portfolio member for planning Cllr Patrick Molyneux would form a working group (including myself) to develop a renewable energy policy for the Forest of Dean.

Job done, or so I thought. Subsequently and up to five months later in May when I lost the Lydney North seat, I heard nothing.

Back in December I believed a renewable energy policy for this area would be a potentially brilliant safeguarding initiative for the whole Forest and would have been able to give invaluable definitive advice to applicants, objectors or, indeed, anyone who needed to take an interest.

As leader now, perhaps Cllr Molyneux could enlighten the 450-plus signatories of the petition if a renewable energy policy now exists for the Forest! If not, why not?

Importantly in this instance assure the public concerned in the Coleford area, that your planners and planning members are working to ideally appropriate local guidance, without the dearth of knowledge and information that was so evident in the recent past.

– Alan Preest, Greenacre, Bream.