Scottish Power has won a ruling against a campaign group that claimed a proposed wind farm would lead to depression, sleep deprivation, headaches and memory loss amongst nearby residents.
A newsletter released by campaigners Vale Villagers against Scottish Power (VVASP) also claimed the industrial wind turbines “would change the landscape forever” and house prices could be reduced by as much as 54% for properties within a one-mile radius of the wind farm.
To support their case, VVASP provided a copy of a 2009 paper on sleep disturbance and wind turbine noise, written by the founder of the Leicester Sleep Disorders Service. They claimed the paper stated that the effect of sleep deprivation could be linked to an increased risk of diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and depression.
But the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) threw out their claims saying the opposing evidence was flimsy and couldn't be relied upon.
In its adjudication, the ASA, ruled: “We considered that the claim 'The constant noise generated by Industrial Wind Turbines can cause amongst other things depression, sleep deprivation, headaches and memory loss' implied that there was a direct correlation between wind farms and the symptoms listed.
“We noted that the short articles by [an] American doctor outlined the issues relating to wind turbine noise and human health, and reported anecdotal evidence of a negative effect on the health of residents who lived in close proximity to wind farms. We also noted that the 2009 report on sleep disturbance was an unpublished report that described the nature and effects of sleep disturbance, and surveyed both anecdotal reports of, and research into, a causal effect between wind turbine noise and sleep disturbance.
“We understood from the 2009 report that the quality of that research was low, and in particular that there were methodological limitations to the research referred to, such as the very small numbers of respondents, dependence on self-completed questionnaires, no use of a control group, the lack of pre-exposure data and the fact that the research was initiated after the turbines had been operating and in response to complaints.
“Although we noted the anecdotal reports of sleep disturbance from those who lived near wind farms, we considered that the reported research was not robust enough to support the claim in the ad.
“Because we had not seen robust, independent evidence that wind turbine noise caused depression, sleep deprivation, headaches and memory loss, we concluded that the claim was misleading.”
On the house value decrease claim, the ASA judged: “We noted that the ad claimed a reduction in house prices of as much as 54% for properties within a one-mile radius of wind farms. We understood, however, that the joint report by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors [RICS] and Oxford Brookes University found that terraced houses sited within one mile of a wind farm were observed to be 54% lower in value than similar houses sited four miles away, but that a smaller decrease was observed for semi-detached houses, and there was no observed decrease for detached houses.
“Notwithstanding that, we also noted the report went on to explain that, when the authors talked to local estate agents, the situation became less clear; their view was that 'proximity to a wind farm was simply not an issue [and] that the properties close to one of the wind farms ... were in fact ex-Ministry of Defence properties, and so less desirable than other similar properties'.
“We noted that the RICS report concluded that their findings required a degree of caution, due to the limited data available regarding the relationship between house prices and proximity to wind farms, and that 'a cautious approach should be adopted until a larger and more in-depth study can be undertaken'.
“We therefore considered that the report was not sufficiently robust evidence to support the property price reduction claim made in the ad, and because we also considered that the claim misrepresented the findings of the 2007 RICS report, we concluded that it was misleading.”
The ASA ruled that the claims could not be repeated.
Dave Jurgensen, Mn, USA around 1 year, 11 months ago