Cockshaw Burn hydro turbine given green light

Aug 15 2009 by David Black, The Journal

A RETIRED civil servant’s bid to use a stream to generate power for his home has won the go-ahead from planners.

Bob Hull wants to install a hydro turbine in an existing stone-built weir across the Cockshaw Burn, which runs past the garden of his home in Allendale Road, Hexham, Northumberland.

The hydro system will use the natural resource of the River Tyne tributary to meet the electricity needs of the house where he lives with his wife Christine – as well as producing a surplus for export to the national grid.

Mr Hull, 62, believes it will support efforts to generate more renewable energy, and help tackle climate change by reducing his home’s carbon footprint.

Now his scheme has been approved by the county council’s west area planning committee, despite objections from almost 30 neighbours.

Committee members have imposed an extra condition on his permission, requiring a noise assessment to be carried out before the turbine is installed. This will have to demonstrate that the turbine won’t increase background noise levels in the nearest properties.

Mr Hull, a former environment policy director with the European Commission in Brussels, wants to raise the height of the weir across the Cockshaw Burn by about half a metre, and install the small hydro turbine together with a control sluice made of treated timber.

Objectors – including the Home Housing Group on behalf of 26 of its residents living in retirement homes on the opposite side of the stream – are worried about potential noise nuisance, the possibility of increased flood risk and the impact on the look of the area and its wildlife.

Mr Hull now has to obtain permission from the Home Group to build the heightened weir into land which it owns next to the burn.

Yesterday Mr Hull said: “I am very happy with the committee’s decision and will provide the noise assessment they have asked for.

“I spoke to the Home Group yesterday, when they were still waiting for the planning decision, and I am now waiting to find out whether they will allow me access to their land. If they refuse there might still be another way of doing this.”

A Home Group spokeswoman said: “We are going to wait for the noise assessment before making a decision.”