MABRAKE – Milton Abbot, BRadstone And KElly Action group.

PRESS RELEASE Two Decades of Deception of Wind Turbine Noise The wind industry and its acousticians have for many years been denying there are noise related problems associated with industrial wind turbines. A report released this week, and presented to the Department of Energy and Climate Change by the Independent Noise Working Group (INWG), shows how a small group of wind industry funded acousticians have taken control of the Institute of Acoustics (IoA) and its noise working groups. This façade of respectability afforded by the Institute of Acoustics has enabled the wind industry to dominate government noise assessment policy and planning guidance by providing inaccurate and misleading scientific advice. The parallels with the Volkswagen emission scandal are quite remarkable. The INWG suggest these two decades of deception are now resulting in serious annoyance and far reaching risks to the health and wellbeing of large numbers of people living in the proximity of wind farms. They have urged the Government to complete an overhaul of the planning conditions that have led to these wind farms being granted planning permission in the first place, and to ensure future developments are more strictly controlled. They also want the Government to provide robust protection for existing wind farm neighbours against the effects of turbine noise – specifically against Excessive Amplitude Modulation (EAM). EAM is a highly intrusive ‘whoosh’ or ‘thumping’ noise characteristic emitted by most wind turbines; a fact which has been continually denied and downplayed by the wind industry. This report is one of a number of elements within a major study which has been prepared for Government by the Independent Noise Working Group (INWG). The INWG is sponsored by Chris Heaton‐Harris MP (Conservative, Daventry). Heaton‐Harris paid tribute to the experts working on the INWG study for the last 12 months: “We have drawn people from a wide range of disciplines. This gives real authority to the final study when I present it to government departments later this autumn”. The INWG reports can be obtained at: http://www.heatonharris.com/reports‐publications Or by contacting us at: wind‐noise@tsp‐uk.co.uk and we can provide links to download all the INWG work packages.