201112.12
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UK Wind Farm Accidents Rise to Alarming Rate

Over three hundred workplace injuries due to wind farm accidents were recorded in the UK in 2009/10 according to a recent report by the wind energy industry´s trade body RenewableUK.

The figures, which brought the total number of injuries and incidents due to wind farm accidents over the past five years to 1,500, were condemned by anti-wind farm campaigners who described the statistics as “alarming”.

Campaigners were quick to point out that in addition to the high number of workplace injuries, there were many wind farm accidents which did not result in injuries – such as in September this year when a blade sheared off from a wind turbine in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, and hit a staff member´s car at the nearby Lister Hospital.

In the same month the Health and Safety Executive forced the closure of hundreds of wind turbines in Scotland due to a faulty braking system, while residents of the Cambridgeshire town of Peterborough have complained about lumps of ice being propelled from the blades of a 410 foot high turbine near their homes.

Despite claims from Chris Streatfeild, RenewableUK’s director of health and safety, that no members of the public have ever been harmed in wind farm accidents, the Health and Safety Executive admitted that it was extremely difficult to draw an accurate picture of wind farm accidents, as wind turbines are classified as machines and there is no obligation on companies to report mechanical failures.