CONTROVERSIAL plans to create a wind farm alongside Hinkley Point power station finally look set to be decided at a special meeting of West Somerset District Council's planning committee at the end of October. A planning officer's report and recommendation on the application by West Hinkley Windfarm Ltd and agent Your Energy is expected to be published on Wednesday, October 12 - a full 14 months after the application was first lodged with the authority. Councillors, the applicants, interested parties and members of the public will then have two weeks to digest the report before a special planning committee meeting is held at Cannington College. The council has booked facilities at the college for the week starting Monday, October 24, although the timing of committee sessions has yet to be decision based on the availability of councillors. However, it is likely the planning committee will begin hearing representations from both supporters and opponents either on the Tuesday or Wednesday, with a final decision being taken either late Wednesday or sometime on Thursday. Planning committee chairman Cllr Viv Brewer said an "exceptionally high" number of people were likely to want to speak at the meeting. He said: "We have chosen the venue because it has the facilities to cope with the large numbers of people who have expressed an interest in this application. "We are asking anybody who wants to speak at the committee meeting to let us know as early as possible in order that we can do our best to accommodate them." The committee will then have to decide whether to approve or refuse plans to site up to a dozen wind turbines, each towering up to 116 metres in height, in a field alongside Hinkley Point visitor centre. The turbines would be capable of producing 33 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 20,000 homes. The application has already been the subject of two rounds of public consultation and a full environmental appraisal. The district council, in turn, has drafted in two consultancies, Nicholas Pearson Associates and RH consulting, to provide expert analysis of the data - which runs into four bound volumes totalling several hundreds of pages. Anyone who wants to attend and speak at the special committee meeting should notify the council by e-mailing [email protected]">[email protected] or telephoning 01643 703704 as soon as possible.