LUNE Valley residents are being urged to object to proposals to build one of the North West’s tallest wind farms two miles outside Kirkby Lonsdale.

More than 100 people packed into Whittington Village Hall last night (Monday) to hear about energy giant Eon’s proposals to build nine 110-metre high turbines at Longfield Tarn.

Campaign group Landscape First, which was set up 18 months ago when members forsaw that the land had potential for wind farm development, told the meeting that if anyone was opposed to the plans, it was important to put forward their objections.

“We need to prove we’ve got a high amount of support from people who live close to it,” said Phil Dale, a member of the campaign group. “When the time comes people need to object.”

Mr Dale said that Landscape first was not against renewable energy or wind farm development, but believed that placing a wind farm in what they saw as a high value landscape was ‘entirely wrong’.

“Lunesdale is an important landscape and we should be protecting that,” he said.

The rejection of the Sillfield wind farm near Gatebeck gave the campaign group hope, said Mr Dale, because many of the reasons against the plans were similar to those concerned with the Longfield Tarn site.

He said the wind farm would not only damage the value of the landscape but would be ‘detrimental’ to those who would live nearby in terms of noise and flicker and would impact on the local economy.