First Flight Wind has released results of the survey of public views on offshore wind turbines.
Recently, they completed a second round of public consultation, during which they held a variety of community consultation events and used them to administer a questionnaire surveying the views of the public.
The purpose of the second round of consultation was to update local communities on the project’s development activities and to gauge public opinion on some key issues the developer is addressing as part of their design and assessment work. Specifically, the round two consultation events focused on the following three areas:
• Factors to be taken into account when locating the project;
• Different project configurations (turbine number and size combinations);
• Viewpoints from which to assess the potential visual impacts of the project.
At the second consultation round, the most comments or questions were received for the seascape, landscape and visual impact, followed by the commercial fisheries, socioeconomics and tourism.
The survey also shows that participants prefer larger turbines placed further apart, over smaller turbines erected closer to shore.
Press Release, April 17, 2014; Image: firstflightwind