Fury at wind farm on 'lost' parkland

Approval was given to build the biggest onshore wind farm in Britain yesterday, outraging campaigners who say it will ruin a "lost" national park.

Work to construct 39 turbines 330ft high at Cefn Croes in the Cambrian mountains of mid-Wales will start this summer after the Energy minister Brian Wilson rejected calls for a public inquiry.

Campaigners say the £35m wind farm below Plynlimon mountain will destroy an unspoilt area that the Countryside Commission designated as a national park in the Seventies, although the Government never formally approved the decision.

Merfyn Williams, the director of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, said Mr Wilson's announcement was a tragedy and that the organisation planned to mount a legal challenge. "This a blow to democracy in the planning process because there has never been a public inquiry and we have never had a chance to put our views fully," he said.

"The area is a particularly special part of Wales in the characteristic openness of the moorlands."

But Geraint Jewson, the director of the Renewable Development Company, which will build the farm, said it had been approved by Ceredigion county council and the Government, and that the Welsh Assembly had not objected. "We just want to get on with it now. The Cefn Croes wind farm will put £11m into the Welsh economy and supply annual electricity needs of nearly 40,000 homes," he said.

The wind farm is expected to be operational by the end of next year.