Powys planners are advising county councillors to approve a 122.5-metre-high weather mast associated with a controversial wind farm application.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Planning Committee on Thursday, August 6, councillors will receive an application from Nant Mithil Energy Park Limited for the meteorological mast at land 3.5 kilometres south-east of Llanfihangel Rhydithon.

It will be the second of two applications for weather mast schemes in the county that are connected with wind turbine proposals to be debated at the meeting.

Nant Mithil Energy Park is the development vehicle for Bute Energy, which wants to build a wind farm with 30 turbines, each with a maximum height of 220 metres, at the site. This is the third weather mast application associated with the scheme.

Planning agent Mykena Mortimer-Davies, of Turley, said the developers had: “identified the site as an optimal location for the collation of wind data for the proposed Nant Mithil Energy Park.”

Ms Mortimer-Davies said: “This has been underpinned by a number of operational requirements to ensure that accurate and calibrated data can be gathered to inform potential future proposals.

“The proposed development is located on semi-improved grassland, avoiding more sensitive habitats.

“The development proposed is small-scale and temporary in nature.

“The site will be restored to its original use once the mast is decommissioned.”

The application has been called before the committee by local county councillor Ed Jones.

Cllr Jones (Powys Independent – Old Radnor) said: “Concerns have been raised in regard to access to the site and the height of the mast by members of the community.”

He had been asked to do this by Llanfihangel Rhydithon Community Council, which held an extraordinary meeting back in February to discuss the application.

Llanfihangel Rhydithon Community Council raised a number of issues with the application and felt that: “aspects of the application were misleading and lacked accurate information.

“In view of this, they requested the local county councillor to call in the application for more detailed scrutiny and determination.”

Senior planning officer Kate Bowen said the development would provide “infrastructure” connected with a proposed renewable energy scheme, which is supported by policies within Powys’ Local Development Plan (LDP), Planning Policy Wales (PPW) and Future Wales.

Mrs Bowen said: “Following the repositioning of the site and the submission of additional information, the concerns raised by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) have been addressed.”

She will advise councillors to give the proposal “conditional consent”.

Last month, it was revealed that the pause on processing the Nant Mithil Energy Park proposal had been extended until September 29.

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The application is being dealt with by Welsh Government planning inspectors as it is classed as a Development of National Significance (DNS) and has been put on hold twice previously.