Wind power plan gets butchered

By Danielle Galvin
GRAND plans for a 25 metre high wind turbine in Garfield’s main strip have been rejected by Cardinia Council.
Clean Energy Turbines Australia applied for the planning permit for the use of a wind energy facility for Country Style Meats in Garfield to help with some of the running costs.
Cr Graeme Moore supported the officer’s recommendation and withdrew the motion to support the refusal of the application.
The company is in the process of building a wind energy facility on a farm in Drouin.
At Monday night’s council meeting, Cr Moore asked General Manager Phil Walton how many times he had seen this sort of an application at council.
Mr Walton replied that he had never seen one on this scale before.
Cr Moore said the officers were given insufficient information, particularly related to noise pollution.
“We need to have all of the relevant information,” he said.
“Particularly in relation to how much noise there would be.
“There would be many more questions, and if it was advertised, there would be objections no doubt.”
At the meeting, Cr Moore advised that the wind turbine would have a wing span of 13 metres in diameter.
“That’s as long as this room,” he said.
“It would be 25 metres in height… that’s a fair structure and it just wouldn’t sit nicely in Garfield’s Main Street.”
But Cr Moore said he sympathised with the butcher, whose annual electricity bill was $12,000. In the proposal, officers were advised that the installation of the wind energy facility would make the Garfield butchers the “cleanest greenest butcher shop in Australia.”
But he said that a wind turbine would be “totally out of character” in Garfield and said that in the past, a number of applications for solar panels had also been rejected based on aesthetics.
“They (solar panels) are not an attractive building appendage – particularly for somewhere like Garfield with a heritage feel,” Cr Moore said.
“In sympathy, the wind energy facility is designed to reduce the energy costs of the butchers shop.
“This butchers shop really is the hub of Garfield.”
James Malone, who owns Clean Energy Australia, said he was “disgusted” with the council’s decision to reject the wind turbine on well-known butcher John Preston’s property.
“We got every possible objection thrown at us related to legislation that covers wind farms,” he said.
“But this is a wind turbine… which is not a wind farm.”
He said he had spent in excess of 100 hours investigating the viability of the wind turbine at the Garfield site.
“It does not bode well for anyone considering wind turbines within Cardinia Shire because it is my considered opinion that council doesn’t understand the legislation.”
The council employed an acoustic engineer to help the officers make their decision.
Cr George Blenkhorn seconded the motion and said the wind turbine was too large, in the wrong place and it was unsuitable.
“Neighbours would need a Panadol at night with all the noise,” he said.
Cr Collin Ross also spoke at the meeting in support of his fellow councillors and said that while he was in favour of green power, the council needed site specific noise output levels.