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BLOT on the landscape? ... work starts on the new Clay Lane electricity sub station in 1955
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Residents couldn't prevent controversial development
8/ 3/2008
THE changing face of the skyline around Rochdale is rapidly becoming evident ... witness the appearance of the giant new wind turbines sprouting up on the moorland around Knowl Hill.
In all, there will be 26 of them – each one the size of Blackpool Tower.
Their construction has been controversial to say the least.
The developers only gaining planning permission to build the £50M wind farm after a long public inquiry when both Rochdale Council and the Friends of Scout Moor voiced their objections.
But the windfarm is not the first time the peace and tranquility of the area has been breached.
As Don Worrall’s photograph from the Observer archives from 1955 shows, the bulldozers have been to the Norden and Bamford area before.
In fact this is early work on the 15-acre electricity sub station near Clay Lane reservoir.
The chosen site was in the middle of quiet, green fields with Knowl Hill, away in the distance, overlooking the entire scene.
Its building was not without controversy either.
The old Heywood Town Council said the rural scenery would be seriously marred by the sub station along with the giant 136ft high pylons which would form part of the system.
Lancashire branch of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, had its concerns as well.
It contended that the ‘heavy skein of cables will literally fence off the sky’.
As we all now know, such objections cut little ice with the authorities and the Clay Lane sub station became fully operational a year later.
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FOSM were 9 geriatrics with nothing better to do than moan, Rochdale moaned because one FOSM member did a lot of moaning. Bury supported the idea as did 80% of the local population. We are luck to have this beauty, I wake up with vigour each morning and throw open the curtains with joy at the sight of more and more and more turbines. I would liek them to build 200 turbines.
14/03/2008 at 23:00