Consent for wind turbine at Horwich Parkway

Bolton Council has approved plans for a twin-bladed wind turbine to be built to provide Horwich Parkway railway station with renewable energy.

Transport for Greater Manchester, which owns the station, will install the wind turbine and any surplus energy produced will be sold back to the National Grid.

Cllr Akhtar Zaman, Bolton Council's executive member for environmental services, said: "Bolton Council has contributed funding from its Transport Infrastructure Fund, and welcomes the opportunity to be involved in this innovative, environmentally friendly scheme."

TfGM said the turbine is a low-noise, high-efficiency model and will produce approximately enough energy to power five average houses, creating an annual saving of around 12 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Members of Bolton Council visited the site on Wednesday, where TfGM officers showed them the proposed turbine location and answered questions about the scheme.

The Horwich Parkway Turbine project is part of Ticket to Kyoto, a European initiative to reduce carbon emissions in public transport.

TfGM has already successfully installed a hydro-electric power scheme in Rochdale as part of the initiative.

Approximately £50,000 of the funding for the Horwich Parkway wind turbine project is from the European Union's INTERREG IVB programme, with additional funding from the North West Development Agency, Bolton Council and Transport for Greater Manchester.