Proposed Application for Scout Moor Wind Farm 2

Email To Rochdale Planning Department 11/1/25 

We are contacting you about concerns of our Association over the application for a large extension to the the current Scout Moor wind farm on Rooley Moor, (your reference is 24/01241/SCO) to request that we are actively consulted regarding the EIA due to be submitted. The following are our major concerns.

We are concerned that we have not had any correspondence in relation to this matter as a local equestrian association. This is surprising as Council Officers and our local Councillors are well aware of our Organisation and our approach to these matters, from our participation at the recent Public Hearing into matters relating to local moors.

There is a National Trail, which traverses a number of local moors in this area including Rooley Moor, which is part of the Pennine Bridleway.  The Pennine Bridleway and The Mary Towneley Loop are nationally significant routes, which are fed by a large network of paths across the moorland in question. They are used used by both local riders and riders travelling from all over the country wanting to utilise this national moorland panorama.

It is a well known fact that horses are flight animals and will bolt if frightened or even nervous. They do not cope very well with moving shadows  and high pitched noises. So how are you going to protect horse riders from a potential accident? The wind turbines must be placed well away from the Pennine Bridleway in such a way that the shadows will not be moving across the trail at any time of day, and far enough away for the horses not to be confronted by the large blades going around and the noise.

Horse riders have a right to ride wherever they wish on the moors, as much of the local moorland is a Section 193 Common and the Applicant has no right to inhibit or curtail the exercise of our Rights of Common.

In addition, how will the safety of riders be ensured during construction?

How will the security of the moors be kept 24hrs a day, 365 days of the year? The illegal off-roaders must be kept off to protect the fragile moors. It has already been shown that, once the tracks are put in for the wind turbines, the off riders are attracted to the area, and ride all over the moors wherever they want. The number of illegal users of the moors has drastically increased since Scout Moor wind farm was built, and this has caused serious erosion of the Peat bogs as well as increased risk of harm to all legitimate users of the moors, including horse riders.

Once these Peat bogs are destroyed they will never return, thereby creating a huge detrimental affect on Carbon collection, which may exceed any benefit from "natural electric". This will also affect the biodiversity of the area and will cause a huge loss of wild life who rely on this type of habitation. The loss of these natural water storage areas could easily cause flooding in the area. How is that going to be solved?

Many properties in this area receive their water supply, via natural springs, disturbing the moors will naturally affect the direction of flow and amount of the flow. How will they ensure this does not happen?

If this planning goes ahead, there is a promise of more tracks being created, we want those tracks to be multi user tracks. Thereby allowing horses to access more of the moors safely.

However we would prefer the planning application to be refused, as we already have the right to unfettered access on those moors and the wind farm would cause problems with our choice of where to go.

The Association looks forward to becoming an active participant in the next stages of the consultation process.

Kind regards

Pat Tough

Chair of NBH Bridleway Association 

Rossendale Planning email sent 16-1-25

The exact same email was also sent to Rossendale Planning on the 16/1/25 with the only changes being replacing 24/01241/SCO with 2024/0495 (the Rossendale Planning Number)

Natural England email sent 25-1-25

A request was sent to Natural England on 25-1-25 requesting they got involved