CONGRATULATIONS to Alvington Court Farm and the local Resilience Centre for winning their planning appeal for a local community wind turbine.

It was disappointing to see such unbalanced coverage on the front page of the Review. Contrary to the claims made, the project has many supporters, locally and across the Forest. Those who have followed this development know that the original planning application to Forest of Dean District Council received more representations of support than objections. Supporters matched objectors during the appeal process too.

The appeal ruling is well considered and extremely thorough and it is heartening to see fairness and sense have prevailed.

Compared with other current planning applications for mega-scale solar farms which are simply paying lip service to local benefits, the Alvington turbine will offer a local investment option, a community grant fund far larger proportionally than typical commercial wind projects and where possible local manufacture and construction jobs.

It is also nonsense to claim that the approval of this single 500KW on-farm turbine will open up the whole Forest and Severn corridor to swathes of other turbine developments.

Any other wind energy application will face the usual rigorous planning process which takes the specific site characteristics and impacts of the development into account.

We need to move on from this blind prejudice against wind energy and start making more nuanced decisions about the renewable energy projects we want to support in our local area.

– Janine Michael, Dean Community Energy Group.