REPOWERING a windfarm in Cliviger - with 110-metre turbines - could have serious implications for the whole of Burnley, campaigners have warned.

Residents packed out the town hall to protest about proposals by Scottish Power to regenerate Coal Clough wind farm, Long Causeway.

Protests had particularly focused on linked plans to create an access road from Red Lees Road, Overtown, and the site, with 223 letters sent to the borough council and objections from Cliviger Parish Council.

Not only were they concerned that the road was in the wrong location, with another route along Foxstones Lane dismissed, but they were worried about the impact of huge delivery trucks on the foundations of older homes nearby.

But members of the borough council’s development control committee, after being told that drystones walls would be replaced after the delivery operation, approved the new turbines and access track.

The energy giant is set to decommission the existing 24 wind turbines at the Coal Clough complex and replace them with eight structures, which are 110-metres high to the top of their blade.

Speaking after the meeting, Coun Andrew Newhouse, who represents Cliviger and Worsthorne, said: “I don’t think that people realise that these turbines will have to travel halfway across the town, to reach the windfarm, and it will have an impact beyond Cliviger.

“The parish council also pointed out that the impact on the foundations of people living nearby will be massive and there have already been issues there.”

The reconfiguring of the wind farm, which first opened in the early 1990s, would not have any impact on the South Pennines Special Protection Area nearby, councillors were told.