The community information days in Bothwell and Miena were well attended, with lively engagement from attendees.

Nineteen community members attended the session at Bothwell Club Rooms at the Recreation Grounds on Friday 12 February, and over 77 attended the session at the Great Lake Community Centre at Miena on Saturday 13 February.

Epuron’s Executive Director Martin Poole and General Manager Development for Tasmania Donna Bolton presented and took questions from the audience. Martin explained why the site is so suitable for a wind farm and Donna detailed the changes to the wind turbine layout, informed by the first year of onsite studies and extensive community consultation to date.

Of the 96 who attended 25% completed a feedback form. Concerns raised include visual impact, noise, flora and fauna especially eagles, impacts to fly fishing and property values. We will continue to avoid and minimise impacts where possible and document how we have addressed the concerns raised. Positive aspects of the project noted by respondents in the feedback forms included generation of clean power and emissions reduction, visual enhancements to the area, and benefits to the local economy and jobs.

We would like to thank everyone who took the time to join us at the information days. We hope they were informative for you and we appreciate your input and feedback. We would also like to thank all those who assisted us at the venues and with catering.

We will be hosting some smaller briefings in the near future with our consultant from Marshall Day Acoustics who was unfortunately unable to attend on this occasion due to the short-notice border closure in Victoria. These upcoming sessions will provide interested members of the community with a better understanding of how noise modelling and assessment works.

Thank you again to all our local stakeholders and community members for engaging with us on the St Patricks Plains Wind Farm proposal. We will continue to work to minimise impacts and maximise the benefits for the local community.

For anyone who was unable to attend the sessions we are happy to schedule a call or online meeting to discuss the new layout, and we are always available via email on d.bolton@epuron.com.au or telephone on 0405 535 325 to answer your questions about the project.

To download the February 2021 information day presentation please click here.