Cheverton Down Wind Farm: Becoming England's 'Greenest' Land

Image of a wind turbine in the landscape.

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The Isle of Wight aims to become an "Eco Island", ‘a broad based strategy for improving the social, environmental and economic sustainability of the island and will build stronger, healthier communities with more opportunities for people to be involved in local life'. The island hopes to have the lowest carbon footprint in England by 2020 and is exploring ways to achieve its goal, including producing renewable energy on and around the island.

Having helped deliver wind farms for developers around the UK, both on and off shore, LDA Design was approached by Cornwall Light and Power to co-ordinate the Environmental Impact Assessment and to undertake the Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment for a proposed wind farm at Cheverton Down on the Isle of Wight. The site was consented in 1993 but the turbines on which the planning application was based were no longer in production, due to significant advances in technology.

Secondhand turbines meeting the 1993 consent were available from the repowering of Goonhilly on the Lizard Peninsula. But, with turbine manufacturer, Vestas, based on the island, it was decided to submit a revised application that would use its turbines, thereby supporting the local economy as well as providing renewable, locally-sourced energy. The new proposal would supply ten times more power.

The latest proposal for Cheverton Down wind farm comprises three Vestas V90-3.0MW wind turbines, 125 metres to blade tip in height and a rotor diameter of 90 metres. The site will produce electricity to meet the needs of almost 5,000 local homes and save over 14,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

During the project evolution, we considered three different layouts to ensure that impacts on the local environment would be minimised. As such, the layout changed from a triangular to a linear one in order to reduce the visual impact from surrounding settlements and create an alignment that followed the topography. The site is located in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and close to a Site of Special Scientific Interest, with potential adverse impacts on the local and regional landscape, associated visual amenity in addition to impacts on bat and bird populations. We liaised with the Isle of Wight Council  and Natural England to ensure that key environmental concerns were mitigated.