IT would be an ‘abdication of responsibility’ to refuse plans for three giant wind turbines in South Lakeland because of landscape impact.

Jeremy Pike, a barrister acting on behalf of Whirlwind Renewables, which plans to build three 110 metre-high turbines near Gatebeck, said the land where the turbines would be constructed had no national or regional impor-tance or value.

The proposed site is just two kilometres from where the controversialArmistead scheme, comprising of six 100 metre high turbines, would be.

The Armistead scheme has been approved following a public inquiry earlier this year but opponents have mounted a legal High Court challenge.

Mr Pike highlighted the need to tackle the ‘increasingly threatening effects of climate change’.

He said that these effects, according to a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is a result of human activity and is likely to continue during the 21st century.

Mr Pike said: “In that context it is an abdication of responsibility to suggest that proposals such as Sillfield should be refused because of a local impact on a landscape which carries no national or even regional designation of importance or value.”

He also noted that Cumbria was falling short of meeting its renewable energy targets.

But Martin Carter, a barrister acting on behalf of SLDC, told the Planning Inspector Robin Brooks that there was no indication in policy or guidance that such a reason should mean being more tolerant of harm.

Mr Carter said that the effects caused by the Sillfield proposal together with the Armistead scheme would cause ‘unacceptable harm’, particularly to the residen-tial amenity of nearby properties at West View and Fair View.

He said that homes to the south-west of the site. would also be affected.

He added that such harm ‘out-weighed the benefits’ of the development.

The Countryside Protection Consortium of South Lakes (CPCSL), which brings together community groups and organisations opposed to wind farms in the area, highlighted its concerns about noise disturbance.

“The turbines are too close to dwellings and too close to one another,” said Geoffrey Sinclair of CPCSL.

The inquiry is expected to last eight days.