COMMUNITY TO OPPOSE 12 x 150 METRE HIGH WIND TURBINE PLANNING APPLICATION
South Wicklow Wind Action Group, the Community-based sustainable development organisation has announced that due to the massive level of local opposition to the Ballymanus Industrial Wind Turbine planning application, it has decided to hold a Public Meeting in Lawless Hotel in Aughrim this coming Friday 16th January at 8.00 p.m.
At the meeting advice and assistance will be made available to anybody who wishes to make a submission to Wicklow County Council and sample submission templates will be
distributed so that those who wish to voice their opposition can do so correctly and within the specified time scale.
A spokesperson for the group said that since the submission of the full Planning Application to Wicklow County Council on 23rd `December, the last working day before the Christmas/New Year shut-down, there has been an enormous upsurge in the volume of Telephone calls, Text messages and Emails, as well as Postings on the SWWAG Facebook page and Signatures and comments on the SWWAG On-line Petition website. These have come not only from concerned residents of the threathened area and county Wicklow generally but from individuals and groups throughout the country.
Because the vast majority of the local enquiries were from people seeking information and assistance with the submission of Objections, the Group decided the best way to meet the need and fill the Information gap was to arrange this meeting.
According to the SWWAG spokesperson this enormous project is just part of a much bigger scheme to surround the entire area between Croghan Mountain and Ballymanus, and running west from Aughrim to Tinahely, with up to 50 similarly-sized Industrial Wind Turbines, plans for which were first uncovered by SWWAG during last Summer.
It will be recalled that the Ballymanus plan was announced at an event organised by ABO Wind in mid-November 2014, but due to it being so poorly advertised, very few people were actually aware the event was taking place and almost nobody in the Community knew anything of what was being planned. This however, appears to have now changed in view of the growing chorous of opposition from residents throughout the affected area, very many of whom have said they will be attending the SWWAG meeting on this Friday, 16th January.
