Energy supplier E.ON commissioned Halcrow to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for a new wind farm near the village of Haswell Plough in County Durham.
If constructed, the five turbines will deliver up to 15MW of electricity - enough to power 7,000 homes – and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 28,000 tonnes a year.
Halcrow brought together experts from across the company to form a multi-disciplinary team for the project, including environmentalists, planners, engineering designers, and specialists in transport assessment and power. Working closely with the client, this team studied all the available options to minimise the environmental impact of the development and incorporate potential benefits into the scheme.
The EIA involved looking not just at the proposed wind farm, but also an associated substation, meteorological mast, cabling and access tracks. The assessment considered the impact of:
- noise
- flora and fauna
- soils and the water environment
- landscape and visual
- shadow flicker
- communications interference
- cultural heritage and recreation
- traffic and transport
- socio-economics
During the EIA, Halcrow actively engaged all the stakeholders who would be affected by the proposals, including landowners and local residents. A public exhibition was held to involve local people and inform them about the development, with very positive results in terms of the way in which the proposals were viewed locally.
The scheme was not assessed to have any major negative environmental impacts once mitigation measures had been accounted for, and numerous benefits were identified - such as the creation of local jobs and the generation of carbon-neutral electricity. In fact the scheme seeks to actively enhance the environment around the turbines by planting hedgerows sourced from indigenous species such as blackthorn, hawthorn and elder, and by increased planting around pond edges and the development of a species-rich grassland.
Halcrow also provided design advice, produced a transport assessment of access routes to the site, and produced a Planning Statement in support of the proposed wind farm – in fact all the documentation needed for E.ON’s planning application for the wind farm