MORE than 1,200 people have given their views over plans to build a windfarm off the coast of Conwy.

The Awel y Môr Offshore Wind Farm consultation received a huge response from residents across North Wales over its plans for 51 to 107 turbines covering an area of 106km2 about 10.5km off the coast. The windfarm woudl stretch from Colwyn Bay to Conwy, to the west of the existing Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm.

Developer RWE held a series of face-to-face and online consultation events which ran for nine days. More than 900 people attended in-person sessions and around 300 formal survey and written responses were sent in.

The responses are expected to be considered and factored into the final project proposals, to be submitted to the UK Government Planning Inspectorate in spring 2022.

The consultation is the second to be held over the windfarm - an online consultation ran in January, which received 142 responses, but concerns were raised by MS Janet Finch-Saunders that residents were not fully informed it was taking place.

Tamsyn Rowe from RWE Renewables, said: “When delivering consultations we always prefer to do face-to-face, but current circumstances meant that we needed to offer a mix of opportunities. That is why, in addition to the nine days spent travelling across North Wales, we also developed a virtual exhibition and ran online webinars for people to share their views and ask questions.

“This ensured there was an opportunity for everyone to be involved and it was great to see the number of responses pour in.

“We will now take the time to consider all feedback received ahead of finalising our formal applications which we plan on submitting in spring of 2022."

The Gwynt y Môr windfarm, which opened in 2015, created over 700 jobs during construction and about £90million was spent on Welsh suppliers. A total of 100 long-term jobs are now attached to the site.