Wind Farm Safety

2.5 Wind farms can be made safer and more accountable by ensuring that key areas of conservation importance and sensitivity are avoided and implementing appropriate working practices to protect sensitive habitats of species using the site. Providing adequate briefing for site personnel and, in particularly sensitive locations, employing an on‐site ecologist during construction would make wind farms safer.

Implementing an agreed post development monitoring programme through planning or licence conditions to ensure that the farm is safe and accountable. Siting turbines close together to minimize the development footprint (subject to technical constraints such as the need for greater separation between larger turbines). Grouping turbines to avoid alignment perpendicular to main flight paths and to provide corridors between clusters, aligned with main flight trajectories, within large wind farms. This would make the farm more bird friendly and minimise mortalities.

Increasing the visibility of rotor blades, high contrast patterns might help reduce collision risk, another possibility is to paint blades with UV paint, which may enhance their visibility to birds. Where possible, installing transmission cables underground which are subject to habitat sensitivities and in accordance with existing best practice guidelines for underground cable installation and marking overhead cables using deflectors and avoiding use over areas of high bird concentrations, especially for species vulnerable to collision. Offshore, carefully timing and routing maintenance trips to reduce disturbance from boats, helicopters and personnel.

Turning to more site‐specific mitigation, it may be necessary to prepare a site management plan designed to reduce or prevent harmful habitat changes following construction, and to provide habitat enhancement as appropriate. Other measures which may be suitable in some circumstances include the relocation of proposed or actual turbines