PROPOSALS to build a second wind turbine at a prominent site overlooking the Worth Valley have been rejected.

Bradford Council planning officers turned down the application to locate the 48-metre high device at Naylor's Hill Quarry – which is already the site of an existing turbine.

The applicant, Gillson & Co (Haworth) Limited, had argued that the additional turbine would produce environmentally friendly energy for a business employing 27 people, with surplus power to go towards the national grid.

It added that the second turbine would slash the firm's carbon footprint and make the company more competitive, noting that the current turbine is reaching the end of its operational life.

However, council planners concluded that the additional turbine would make an "unacceptable" visual impact on the landscape.

They said that despite the benefits of renewable energy, the negative elements of the application were not outweighed by any "special circumstances" in its favour.

Their report states: "The proposed wind turbine would represent an encroachment of inappropriate development into the Green Belt that would have a harmful effect on the openness of the Green Belt.

"The development would introduce a further incongruous and widely visible vertical element into this sensitive rural landscape, whose historical and literary associations are also central to its wider economic value in tourism terms."