Dales water power project backed

Langcliffe Hall Estate, near Settle, applied for full planning permission to install a micro hydro-electric scheme at Manor Farm at Halton Gill in Littondale.

The park authority's member champion for climate change, William Weston,said: "This is a very brave application and I hope many others will take up this option." He added that such hydro-electric power schemes were a better alternative to large wind turbines.

Mr Weston, like YDNPA planning committee member, Peter Charlesworth and Craven District councillor John Roberts would have preferred a community scheme.

But they recognised that for Dales farmers selling hydro-electric power to the National Grid was another form of diversification and producing a cash crop.

Mr Charlesworth told the park authority planning committee that the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust regarded the scheme as a flagship for hydro-electricity and hoped that other farmers would be able to learn from the expertise acquired at Halton Gill.

However, concerns were raised that the scheme would cause disruption to the village's already precarious water supply. The private supply which serves 21 homes, farms and the village hall mainly takes water from a spring but sometimes has to depend upon Halton Gill beck.

For the hydro-electric scheme a small weir will be built across Halton Gill beck to create a header tank. The water will pass through an underground pressurised pipe to a powerhouse before flowing through another pipe into the River Skirfare.

The conditions of the Environment Agency licence will mean that the scheme will not operate when the level of water in the beck is very low or when heavy rainfall causes the spring feeding the village water supply to be blocked with debris.

A parish meeting had told the park authority: "Halton Gill is a very isolated area and the last thing we need is another disruption to our daily lives due to an unnecessary change in the water supply."

There were also concerns about the amount of noise generated by the powerhouse which will be built to look like a traditional barn.

The YDNPA's deputy head of planning, Andrew McCullagh, said the noise insulation qualities of the powerhouse had been agreed with the chief environmental health officer of Craven Council. If the noise levels were too high the powerhouse would be shut down until this was rectified.

He said there had been discussions with the applicant about how to minimise the impact of the scheme on such a significant and largely unspoilt landscape of Littondale.

In his report Mr McCullagh stated: "It has to be concluded that the scheme would be contrary to a strict interpretation of National Park purposes in that there would be real, if limited, visual impact. However, to set against this are the important material considerations of the government-led drive to reduce, nationally and locally, our dependence on fossil fuels, and the educational benefits of the development being open to public view."

The Sustainable Development Fund will be used to provide a grant of around 40,000 for the 200,000 scheme.

Langcliffe Hall Estate has also applied for a water abstraction licence from the Environment Agency and the consultation period for that ends on July 29.