PLANS for wind turbines on Lowick Common have been resurrected months after a proposal was rejected in the face of strong local opposition.

Despite losing a planning appeal to install one 65-metre mast at Lowick last summer, Gloucester-based company Ecotricity has submitted two new ambitious proposals to South Lakeland District Council.

Ecotricity's managing director Dale Vince said the firm was pushing for turbines because Lowick remained an ideal site and decisions by SLDC and later the planning inspector to block the windmills had been close run.

SLDC is now faced with two different applications from Ecotricity, the sister company of Next Generation which put forward the unsuccessful bid for one turbine in 2000.

The first proposes two of the E66 turbines generating 1.8MW of electricity each and measuring 65 metres to the hub plus a blade length of 70 metres - a height two-thirds that of Blackpool Tower.

The alternative application is for two smaller E40 turbines similar to those already turning at Kirkby Moor.

The E40s have smaller 40-metre blades on a 65-meter mast generating 600kw each.

Mr Vince said the thinking behind the two applications was an attempt to strike an acceptable balance between energy production and visual impact.

"You either reduce visual impact with two smaller turbines or increase green energy production."

SLDC's head of development control Peter Ridgway will now decide if the applications merit fresh consideration by the council.

"We are still trying to judge whether the proposal is sufficiently different to be registered and go through the process.

There is no notice on site, I don't want to upset the community needlessly."

Mr Ridgway added that he had already thrown out an Ecotricity application earlier this year because it was "almost identical" to the original application SLDC rejected on the grounds of its visual impact.

SLDC's development control sub-committee voted ten to seven to refuse Ecotricity's bid for one turbine on Lowick Common after receiving 323 letters of objection and 109 of no objection.

In 1995, an application from landowners Jim and Yvonne Miller for three 35-metre turbines on the same site was rejected and thrown-out again at a public inquiry in 1997.

The new wind turbine plan, if the council rules it eligible for consideration, can expect to generate similar controversy.

Graham Hale, of Friends of the Lake District, confirmed that the organisation would rally against the turbines.

"We have opposed it in the past and see no reason why we shouldn't keep to that view.

I'm surprised to see the application and so soon."

Chairman of Friends of Lakeland, Eden and Lunesdale Scenery (FELLS) Sir Christopher Audland said: "If the application is twice as bad we will object twice as strongly."

Meanwhile, Margaret Sanders, of South Lakeland Friends of the Earth, said the group would support the plans adding that a recent survey by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds showed that 52 per cent of Britons supported land-based wind turbines over other kinds of power stations.

"If we fail to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently with non-polluting renewable energy, more new nuclear build will take place."