Together the Kentish Flats and Barrow wind farms, with turbines as high as the London Eye, will bring green electricity to 180,000 UK homes. The Kentish Flats facility, to be built 6 miles off the North Kent coast, could provide roughly half of all electricity consumed by nearby Herne Bay, Whitstable and Canterbury combined while reducing national carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 265,000 tonnes yearly.

With construction due to start next year, the facility will be on-stream well before Kent's ageing Dungeness nuclear power station is decommissioned in 2013.

In announcing the approvals, Britain's Energy Minister, Brian Wilson, said, 'The benefits of offshore wind are not just environmental. It also presents British industry with a number of opportunities for job creation and investment in manufacturing and construction, especially given the many years of experience gained from oil and gas activity in the North Sea.'

Kentish Flats, the first windfarm in the Thames Estuary, will be built by GREP UK Marine Ltd. Capital investment of up to £90 million is expected to favour regional assembly and maintenance of the turbines.

Thames ports will be used throughout the construction, with a permanent maintenance base to be sited on the North Kent coast.

Cumbria's first windfarm will be built by Warwick Energy Ltd some five miles south west of Walney Island. Work on this development is now scheduled to begin in Spring 2004 for completion later the same year.

MJ Information No: 18105