New research conducted by the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health (CIEH) and the University of Ulster reveals that while communities in Northern Ireland have pre conceived concerns of living near wind turbines, there is in fact little or no impact on residents with 85.6% of respondents confirming that they were not adversely affected by the wind farm location.

However although almost 25% of respondents believed that the community would benefit from the required investment that developers must provide, the report found that funding within the local community needs to be more effectively distributed in order for the residents to benefit from it directly.

The new report focused on the perceptions, concerns and experiences of wind farms among populations who reside close to a proposed wind farm site and those who reside near to an operational wind farm site and unveiled some interesting statistics including;

- 78.2% of respondents at the operational site reported that they had little or no concerns prior to the development of a  wind farm,  with85.6% reporting that they had not been affected at all after the development of the wind farm.- While 10.3% of respondents at the operational site had concerns around noise from turbines prior to construction less than 2% reported being affected by any noise- 45.5% of respondents at the proposed site  felt that cheaper electricity for their local area should be a benefit as a result of having a wind farm nearby- 31.8% surveyed at the proposed site thought that there may be extra employment as a result of the development of the wind farm site however only 13% at the operational site  believed that there has been any additional jobs created within their local community.

Commenting on the research Gary McFarlane, Director CIEH NI said “This new report has uncovered some statistics that we expected but also raised some very surprising and interesting results. Despite the perception that wind farms present challenges for host communities these concerns are far removed from the realties with the findings highlighting that the experience of living in close proximity to operational wind farms largely reduces or mitigates any previous anxieties or fears.

“However the lack of perceived benefits from the required community fund and the need for greater opportunities to be made available through community ownership is a major area for concern. A number of respondents felt that the creation of community turbines should be investigated, as has been done in Wales, where the host community benefits from wind energy installations and local people can exercise a degree of control over the projects.”The number of wind farms in Northern Ireland is set to grow with the Northern Ireland Executive aiming to maximize the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources in order to reduce carbon emissions and contribute to the 40% renewable electricity target by 2020.

Gary continued, “In order to attain the Northern Ireland Executive’s ambitious target, we believe a comprehensive stakeholder engagement strategy needs to be employed between the energy companies and local communities here. Northern Ireland is ideally situated to exploit wind energy and it is essential that a joined up approach is adopted in order to alleviate negative views and perceptions going forward around the potential impacts of wind turbines on local communities and neighbourhoods.”

ENDS

For Further Information contact Shane Finnegan or Caroline Murphy at Aiken PR on 02890663000 or shane@aikenpr.com

Notes to Editors: 1. The research was conducted by Shauna McAuley and Sean MacIntyre at the University of Ulster with assistance from Gary McFarlane and Hannah Rollings at CIEH2. The Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) provided part of the funding to carry out the survey fieldwork3. Ten fieldworkers carried out the survey over three consecutive Saturdays beginning 18th February 2012