Wednesday, 30 November 2022
THE Walcha community will have an additional five weeks to respond to NSW Department of Planning on the proposed Winterborne Windfarm, thanks to the intervention of the Minister for Planning Anthony Roberts, Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall announced today.
Mr Marshall approached the Minister earlier this week after fielding concerns from Walcha locals about the short timeframe to respond to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Winterborne proposal, the largest windfarm project ever put forward in the region.
“This is great news for the community, which will now have until 22 January next year to make a submission in response to the Winterborne proposal,” Mr Marshall said.
“The Department was only publicly exhibiting the proposal for one month, which simply was not enough time for the community to read, critically analyse and properly response to a document and attachments of almost 1,000 pages.
“This is the largest and most complicated wind farm proposal our region has ever seen and so I feel the right decision has been made to extend the period of public comment.
“I thank the Minister for responding so positively and quickly to my request on behalf of the community.”
Mr Marshall said the windfarm proponent had years to compile its EIS, so it was reasonable to give the community impacted by the proposal adequate time to respond, beyond the original closing date of 15 December.
“The extra time will allow locals to respond with better quality submissions and give the Department a much better sense of community views, questions and concerns, which is the whole purpose of the public exhibition period,” he said.
The Winterborne Windfarm proposes to construct up to 119 turbines of a blade tip height of 230 metres near Walcha.
The community now has until 22 January 2023 to respond to the Winterborne Windfarm EIS.