LDP11 Landscape Sensitivity and Capacity Assessment for Onshore Wind Turbine Development

Conwy and Denbighshire comprise a diverse mix of landscapes many of which are highly valued for their great natural beauty and tranquillity. These landscapes range from remote and wild uplands and moorlands to narrow steep sided valleys, wide river floodplains, gently undulating pastoral lowlands and dramatic coastlines. Busy coastal resort towns contrast markedly with the highly rural areas inland. Topography plans within Appendix 5 illustrate the diverse landform of the study area.

¹¹ Denbighshire County Council (2003) Denbighshire Landscape Strategy

• Lowland areas - generally rolling farmland with extensive tree cover and a historic and nucleated settlement pattern.
• Lower Hills & Valleys - a mosaic of low hills and narrow valleys with abundant woodland.
• Limestone Country - a range of landscapes dominated or influenced by limestone.
• Marginal uplands - a series of upland fringe landscapes dominated by high hills, numerous valleys and extensive moorland with an overall strong rural character and sparse population.

Much of the geographical area covered by this study is identified as marginal upland.

• Coastal Lowlands
• Valleys
• Limestone Country
• Uplands

The study area is bounded by two nationally important landscapes; Snowdonia National Park to the west and south; and the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB to the east (most of which is included within the study area).

These landscape designations together with cultural heritage and other environmental constraints are illustrated on Figure 3 and the key designations related to landscape character and value are outlined below.

¹⁴ http://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/1540

¹⁵ http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/historicenvironment/protection/worldheritage/cstlsedward1/?lang=en

• Conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the area.
• Promote opportunities to understand and enjoy its special qualities.
• Foster the economic and social wellbeing of its communities.

It is recognised that wind energy development may occur in open country and on common land. However each wind turbine would be regarded as a building, therefore the turbine and the developed land immediately around it would be excepted land under Schedule 1 of the CRoW Act. Depending on how close the turbines are, the public may be able to walk between the turbines.

¹⁶ http://www.ccgc.gov.uk/enjoying-the-country/open-access-land.aspx

Conwy and Denbighshire contain a cluster of Registered Historic Landscapes:

• Pen Isaf Dyffryn Conwy (Lower Conwy Valley) - ‘A topographically diverse landscape, straddling the lower Conwy valley and adjacent uplands on the north eastern flanks of the Carneddau ridge in north Snowdonia, containing extensive and well-preserved relict evidence of land use, communications and defence from the prehistoric period onward’.
• Creuddyn a Chonwy (Creuddyn & Conwy) - ‘This mainly coastal landscape, comprising the Great and Little Orme’s Heads and the lower part of the Conwy Estuary and its hinterland in north Snowdonia, contains evidence of highly diverse land use and settlement from the early prehistoric period to the present’.
• Gogledd Arllechwedd (North Arllechwedd) - ‘A dissected, mainly upland, area situated on the northern flanks of the Carneddau ridge in north Snowdonia, containing well-preserved relict evidence of recurrent land use and settlement from the prehistoric to medieval and later periods’.
• Pen Isaf Dyffryn Elwy (Lower Elwy Valley) - ‘A steeply-sided gorge and part of a narrow river valley to the west of the Vale of Clwyd, with a group of caves containing internationally significant Quaternary geological and archaeological deposits, including evidence for, and human remains belonging to, the earliest occupation of Wales a quarter of a million years ago’.
• Mynydd Hiraethog (Denbigh Moors) - ‘A visually striking and extensive rolling moorland landscape comprising the central and western part of the Denbigh Moors situated between the major river valleys of the Clwyd and Conwy in North Wales. The area represents a large, and in Wales an increasingly rare, survival of an uninterrupted extent of heather moorland, deliberately managed and maintained as a grouse moor and a shooting estate in the early part of the 20th century, the greater part overlying archaeological evidence of successive periods of land use from the prehistoric, medieval and later periods’.

• SLA 1 – Y Gogarth a Phenrhyn Creuddyn (Great Orme and Creuddyn Peninsular)
• SLA 2 – Rhyd y Foel i Abergele (Rhyd Y Foel to Abergele)
• SLA 3 – Dyffrynnoed Elwy ac Aled (Elwy and Aled Valleys)
• SLA 4 – Hiraethog
• SLA 5 – Cerrigydrudion a choridor yr A5 (Cerrigydrudion and the A5 corridor)
• SLA 6 – Dyffryn Conwy (Conwy Valley)

The purpose of this regional designation is to ensure that the character of these areas is not altered by inappropriate forms of development and that features which contribute to local distinctiveness are conserved.

Table A4.2 (within Appendix 4) also includes information about existing and proposed offshore wind energy developments.

Appendix 4 also includes Table A4.3 (Other Wind Energy Development Proposals) and Figure A4.1 which represent all operational and consented wind energy developments together with all other applications for wind energy developments (including those refused) within the study area as at the end of March 2013.

• The first is a small area to the south of Cerrigydrudion (refer to Figure 4 and Appendix 4, wind energy development references E3, E5, E7, E8 and E29
• The second area is in and around Moel Maelogen wind farm to the east of Llanrwst (refer to Figure 4 and Appendix 4,wind energy development references E4, E6, E15, E22 and E23)
• The third area is just outside the study within the 10 km buffer in Gwynedd. This is the Braich Ddu development (refer to Figure 4 and Appendix 4,wind energy development reference E62).

• Effects on views from residential properties which have views of existing wind energy developments (in particular to the south of the study area around SSA A)
• Effects on views from Snowdonia National Park
• Effects on views from the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB
• Effects on views from Offa’s Dyke Path national trail
• Effects on views from promoted public rights of way such as the Clwydian Way and Dyserth Cycleway
• Effects on views from the A5 historic route
• Effects on views from the A5 and North Wales Coast Railway
• Effect on views from Registered Historic Landscapes, Parks and Gardens, World Heritage Sites, and other areas of acknowledged cultural heritage importance

References regarding potential cumulative visual effects and guidance on how to avoid these are made, where relevant, within the landscape strategy area assessments.

• Snowdonia National Park and its setting
• Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB and its setting (including the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal World Heritage Site and its essential setting)
• Cynwyd and Llandrillo AOB and its setting
• Conwy Special Landscape Areas
• Registered Historic Landscapes¹⁸

References regarding cumulative landscape effects and guidance on how to avoid these are made, where relevant, within the landscape strategy area assessments.

¹⁷ Definition taken from SNH (2012) Assessing the cumulative impact of onshore wind energy development, Inverness: Scottish Natural Heritage

¹⁸ Undesignated but recognised as being of national value