PARK users claim they have been “kept in the dark” about plans to build a wind turbine in North Oxford.

Oxford City Council has revealed it is ready to dispose of part of Cutteslowe Park to make way for the green energy turbine.

Three months ago the council unveiled a scheme to build a different £3m turbine – with a combined blade and tower height of 130 metres – between the Cowley Mini works and Horspath.

The height of the proposed new turbine has not been released, but already fears have been raised it could dominate or spoil the landscape.

Graham Jones, chairman of the Friends of Cutteslowe Park, said: “We should have been consulted about something that will obviously have a major impact on the park. We are very concerned.

“We’re talking about a great deal of space being needed.

“The Friends is a representative body, yet at a meeting we had with parks officers just a few weeks ago nothing was mentioned.”

The plan was revealed after city council chief executive Peter Sloman placed a public notice in the Oxford Mail’s sister paper The Oxford Times on October 29.

The notice revealed the council intended to dispose of land at the south end of the park and put up the turbine, and invited people to make their thoughts known by Wednesday, November 25.

Suzanne McIvor, who lives in nearby Talbot Road and is a member of the Friends of Cutteslowe Park, said she understood the park had originally been given to the city by a farmer.

She said: “I don’t know the form of the legal document but I would be very surprised if it allowed the council to sell parcels of land off.

“I’m quite sympathetic to the idea of wind farms but not if they’re spoiling the landscape.

“It’s just the same old story of the council going ahead and no one being told or consulted. We have all seen the turbine on the motorway, near Reading, which dominates the landscape.”

Construction of both turbines would be supervised by the council and Partnerships for Renewables, a body set up by the Carbon Trust to work with the public sector.

Last year the council asked experts to look at four possible sites for a wind turbine.

The other two sites were south of Greater Leys and close to Hinksey Park, although the latter plan has been dropped.

The plan to build the first turbine – which could power 1,200 homes – near Horspath Road athletics track has provoked opposition because of fears it could damage the landscape. A planning application is expected in 2011.

City council spokesman Louisa Dean said the notice was placed as part of the authority’s statutory responsibility.

She added: “No decision to dispose of this land will be made until the advertising process is concluded.”

Tony Duffin, regional manager for Partnerships for Renewables, said it would wait until it was legally possible to put a turbine on the land before undertaking environmental and technical studies.

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