LARGE crowds are expected to pack out Furzebrook Village Hall on Thursday for a crunch meeting on Purbeck’s proposed wind farm.

Purbeck District Council planning board members have already ruled they are “minded to approve” permission for the four-turbine Alaska Wind Farm, but after a wave of public interest they laid down a string of tough conditions on the developers.

Infinergy, the company behind the bid to erect the quartet of 125-metre turbines, have said they will be able to meet these conditions, which include strict noise restraints.

At the meeting the planning board will make their final ruling on the wind farm.

Earlier this month around 60 people, including members of the Purbeck Campaign to Protect Rural England and Dorset Against Rural Turbines, met close to the proposed wind farm site to protest.

They brought along placards calling for the district council to refuse permission for the plant at Master’s Quarry, Puddletown Road, East Stoke.

Meanwhile, Yes2Wind and members of the Purbeck Environment Action Team (PEAT) are hoping for a conclusion in favour of the project.

Tania Kaplan, from PEAT, said: “It would be great to have some renewable energy generation in Purbeck.

“Three quarters of the people who wrote in to the council were supportive of the wind farm, and the preliminary results of a Dorset County Council survey show that 83 per cent of people support the idea of Dorset generating 15 per cent of its energy by 2020.”

Purbeck Campaign to Protect Rural England chairman Terry Stewart believes the turbines will “desecrate” the landscape.

He said: “It is very much all to play for still on March 31.”

Infinergy chief executive Charles Sandham said: “People want the planners and others in authority to get on with the job of installing a meaningful renewable energy portfolio in Dorset and stop pandering to a vocal minority who want to revert to the end of the last century.”

The planning board meets at 9.15am.