A TOURISM boss said Bournemouth Council is “totally frustrated” with the windfarm company’s lack of images.

Mark Smith, head of tourism, spoke out just before the first public consultation of the Poole Bay scheme came to an end on Tuesday.

He said people needed proper information from Eneco before they could make their minds up.

“At the moment we have been totally frustrated in terms of images,” said Mr Smith, speaking at the April meeting of Bournemouth Chamber of Trade.

“So how on earth are we supposed to assess what effect it will have? How on earth are the travelling public supposed to say what on earth the effect will be?”

Bournemouth councillors are currently studying whether the sight of the turbines will drive away tourists.

The windfarm would occupy 76 square miles between Purbeck and the Isle of Wight.

The plans have not yet been submitted but it will contain 150-300 wind turbines up to 210 metres high, about 10 miles from Bournemouth and Poole, and eight miles from Swanage.

Mr Smith also told the meeting Eneco went to “great pains” to make sure its only other windfarm could not be seen from the Dutch coast, at a distance of 24km.

“All we want is for images to show that they are showing the same consideration for the wind farm off the south coast,” he said.

Chris Sherrington, project director at Eneco, said in a statement: “As we are still in the early stages, we are not able to make any final decisions for the scheme.

“At the public exhibitions we showcased montages of how the wind farm could possibly look.

“As we progress with the Environmental Impact Assessment, we will be providing further information, including further visual montages.

“We expect this to be late summer to early autumn.”

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “We think it’s best to make assessments on distance from the coastline on a case by case basis.

“The Environmental Impact Assessment, which considers issues such as visual impact, will be taken into account during the planning process.”