City stadium turbine plan ditched

The turbine would have powered the stadium and nearby homes

Plans for a wind turbine on top of the City of Manchester Stadium have been abandoned for fear of falling ice.

Planning permission for the 280ft (85m) turbine - which would have powered the stadium and some neighbouring homes - was granted in August 2006.

But the project was delayed after experts warned of a risk of ice falling from the blades in cold weather.

A Manchester City Football Club spokesman said it had now become "impractical to continue".

The turbine, designed by Sir Norman Foster, was planned as a partnership between the club and green energy company Ecotricity.

Exclusion zone

Concerns were raised by Ecotricity earlier this year after they had been approached by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) about possible ice formations on the wind turbines.

The HSE said there was a risk of ice forming on the huge blades and falling to the ground when temperatures dropped below -4C (25F).

Manager of social responsibility at the football club, Pete Bradshaw, said: "What was required was an exclusion zone beneath the wind turbine that was almost 100m (328ft) in diameter.

"We couldn't commit to that in an urban setting, it's absolutely impossible."

He added: "Working with Ecotricity, we spent many months trying to resolve that one and basically came to the end of searching for solutions to be honest.

"We couldn't come up with anything that would satisfy everybody, and therefore it became impractical to continue."

If the structure had been built, it would have been one of the UK's largest land-based turbines - larger than the nearby B Of The Bang sculpture.