Windfarm reports blow hot and cold on prices

Where there's a research document saying one thing, there's usually another saying the opposite - and so it is now over the alleged effect of windfarms on house prices.

A report by the London School of Economics last week suggested that large windfarms can lead to a fall in prices of up to 12 per cent for properties within a two kilometre radius. Smaller effects on prices could be felt even up to as much as 14 kilometres away from a windfarm, the report alleged.

However, a separate report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research suggests something rather different - that there was no negative impact on house prices even within a five kilometre radius of a windfarm or an individual wind turbine.

The LSE survey, called Gone with the wind: valuing the visual impacts of wind turbines through house prices', concluded that "windfarm developments reduce prices in locations where the turbines are visible, relative to where they are not visible, and that the effects are causal".

The CEBR report - which perhaps reached an inevitable conclusion given that it was conducted on behalf of the windfarm trade association RenewableUK - looked at seven sites across England and Wales. It said that many turbines were concealed by nearby buildings, trees and the natural landscape so had no or little effect on house values.

So now we know - or don't.