OSMI’s Delburn Windfarm reaches next stage of development
Today OSMI has released a revised design for the Delburn Wind Farm.
After completing the first round of impact assessment studies necessary for the project design, OSMI has released a revised project design. In the revised layout, the number of turbines has been reduced from 35 to 33 and a small number of turbines have been relocated to improve constructability of the project and reduce the impacts of noise on the project’s neighbours. Internal roads and cable routes have been modified to reduce the impact on areas of native vegetation and associated native fauna.
In releasing the revised design OSMI Director Mr Peter Marriott said, ‘This represents an important milestone in the project development as this is the layout we intend to submit to the Minister for Planning for approval to construct the Delburn Wind Farm’.
OSMI is committed to conducting genuine community consultation on the project and this is well underway. Conversations have been had with over 450 neighbouring households and other interested stakeholders through project information days, tours of the Bald Hills Windfarm and visitors to our local office in Boolarra.
OSMI will be holding additional information days in Darlimurla and Thorpdale on Friday 13 and Saturday 14 March 2020 and is offering further tours of the Bald Hills Windfarm on 27 and 28 March between 10am and 3pm. Bookings can be made for these tours at the open days or by emailing [email protected].
‘We understand that people have genuine concerns about the impact this project will have on their neighbourhood. OSMI is committed to meeting best practice standards for wind farm design and to working with the community to develop a mutual understanding of the impacts of the project’ Mr Marriott said.
To ensure full transparency of the project all technical studies that have been completed are available on the project websites for the community to read. These studies will now need to be updated to take account of the revised project design before being submitted to the Minister for Planning for approval.
The next stage in our community engagement will be the establishment of a Community and Stakeholder Consultative Committee. This committee will be led by an Independent Chair and OSMI are interested in hearing from members of the community with an interest in forming part of this committee.
