RICS SHOW THAT WIND FARMS LEAD TO A FALL IN PROPERTY VALUES

http://www.knolltowindfarm.org.uk/economic.htm

RICS SHOW THAT WIND FARMS LEAD TO A FALL IN PROPERTY VALUES

Credible, independent, report by Property experts

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors ("RICS") report, "The Impact of wind farms on the value of residential property and agricultural land", published in November 2004, is one of a few, if not the only, such studies in the world produced by a credible organisation without a vested interest pro or anti wind farms that is based on market values, and specifically relates to the UK.

This report is attached to this website.

Fall in value reported by the majority

This study clearly indicates that 60% of Chartered Surveyors with experience of transactions impacted by wind farms [transactions of buildings from where the wind farm can be seen] detected a reduction in value compared to similar transactions which were not impacted by a wind farm. In the South-West of England, this percentage increased to 77%.

How much do properties fall in value?

Evidence supporting the size of the fall is harder to find- largely due to wind farms being relatively new phenomena in the UK and also typically being in remote locations.

However, a number of sources do exist, either specifically covering Wind Farms, or similar features and their associated blight on property values.

In a legal case reported in the Times newspaper on January 10th 2004, Judge Michael Buckley ruled that the value of a house in Marton, in the Lake District, fell by 20% due to the construction of a nearby Wind Farm.

A consultant at FPD Savills, the international property agent, has advised a client that a wind farm built near to his property could decrease its value by 30%.

In an article in the Daily Telegraph, on the 4th April 2004 the President of Denmark's National Association of Neighbours to Wind Turbines indicated that in Denmark some people living close to wind mills found it impossible to sell their homes. This organisation also claim that "most estate agents" in Denmark estimate a 25% to 30% decrease in property values in wind farms are constructed nearby.

Economists at Hometrack, an independent property research and database company, which maintains the UK's largest database of surveyors valuations provided by UK High Street Lenders [14.5 million valuations at September 2005], produced research in 2003 which indicated that location of a home close to a mobile phone or telephone mast could knock 3% off the value of a property, being close to electricity pylons could reduce value by 9% and being close to a busy road could reduce asking prices by around 12%.

Leading solicitors Irwin Mitchell indicate that there is some evidence that suggests erecting a mobile phone mast close to residential property could knock between 5% and 10% off its value. It also reports the case of Swindon Borough Council being forced to pay compensation to property owners for allowing a mobile phone mast to be erected in the middle of their street.

" The Campaign for Planning Sanity", a Charitable organisation set up in 1999 to assist local communities involved in the planning process., indicate that District Valuers typically agree settlements of between 5% and 10% of value in compensation cases due to altering the status of a main highway to intensive road use near to a house.

These statistics indicate that the risk of the potential destruction of capital in the Sedgemoor economy if a wind farm is built at Inner Farm is therefore very significant, due to the proximity to, and impact on, so many domestic properties.