TWO villages have won their fight to stop a 36- metre wind turbine being built in their area near a nature reserve.

Planning officers at Selby District Council recommended that the scheme by Caddick PLC for Kellington, near Beal, should go ahead with 14 conditions including measures to protect plant and animal life at the site.

Their report by Yvonne Taylor quoted the company’s claim it would protect local jobs. She wrote: “The main issue is to consider where the balance lies between the adverse effects of the proposed development when weighed against the widely accepted benefits of renewable energy generation so as to demonstrate whether very special circumstances exist to justify approval.”

Planning committee members turned the application down.

Parish councillors in both Beal and Kellingley objected on the grounds the site off Weeland Road lay in the green belt and open countryside. Both parish councils claimed it had “no special circumstances” to justify building the structure against green belt planning policy. Beal Parish Council also objected on the ground the site was in a flood plain and the structure would be noisy. The Environment Agency, the Government body which oversees flood prevention and protection schemes and rivers, did not object.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, which runs the nearby Willow Garth Nature Reserve, was concerned that the turbine would disturb wildlife through noise and disturbance and it would be so prominent it would have a major effect on the landscape and therefore affect the pleasure of visitors to the reserve.

But it did not object provided the council included conditions to protect wildlife.

The application was for a 50 kW wind turbine on a 36.4 metre pole with three blades that would reach up to 46 metres as they revolved. The rotor part would have been 19.2 metres across.