{"id":147772,"date":"2025-09-16T16:25:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T16:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/147772\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T16:25:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T16:25:19","slug":"so-much-uncertainty-nsw-farmer-details-mental-health-toll-of-zombie-nsw-wind-farm-project-on-rural-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/147772\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018So much uncertainty\u2019: NSW Farmer details mental health toll of \u2018zombie’ NSW wind farm project on rural community"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rural New South Wales farmer has revealed the shocking mental health impacts an indefinitely delayed wind farm project in the southern tablelands has had on residents following a major pushback against the project.<\/p>\n

Locals have been pushing back on renewable energy development company Wind Prospect\u2019s proposal for up to 90 large wind turbines to dot the landscape in an area 20km northwest of Yass.<\/p>\n

Wind Prospect emailed residents on Thursday last week, advising plans for the wind farm had been \u201cpostponed\u201d until at least next year, The Saturday Telegraph reported.<\/p>\n

The company said the delay would allow them to \u201ccarefully consider the feedback we\u2019ve received from community members\u201d, according to the masthead.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Sky News on Monday evening, Yass Farmer Emma Webb said there is \u201cso much uncertainty\u201d within the community over the project, given the development was stalled but not scrapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cProjects put on ice like this can torment regional communities for years. They’re called zombie projects, so they’re not quite dead, but they’re also not quite alive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can’t trust Wind Prospects, so we can\u2019t relax, we can’t get back to our normal lives. They could breathe life back into this project during our busiest time, during shearing or harvest or during a fire season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the locals\u2019 successful stalling efforts, Ms Webb said the delay means the project continues to have \u201ca huge mental health toll\u201d on the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s still sitting over our heads and there’s no transparency or clarity as to what’s going on,\u201d the farmer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the predatory behaviour of this company continues and it’s yet another demonstration of the power imbalance that exists between us and these big companies, these big corporations, who are calling the shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Growing<\/p>\n

Ms Webb said locals had already spent thousands of voluntary hours fighting the wind farm proposal, taking time out from their families and professional lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe estimate that in just the four months since this project was brought to our attention, we’ve had to invest over 4,000 hours of unpaid work into protecting our community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s time stolen from our paid work and from our families and stolen productivity from our region. You know, that’s farmers and local professionals and teachers and nurses who have had to commit huge unpaid resources and energy simply so that we as a community can participate fairly in something that has been imposed on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph has also reported Wind Prospect is repaying millions of pounds owed to creditors in the United Kingdom after an insolvency process began in 2017.<\/p>\n

The masthead reported on Monday that, according to financial documents, the company is still in the process of repaying \u00a38.2 million, or $16.7 million, worth of secured and unsecured debt.<\/p>\n

SkyNews.com.au has approached Wind Prospect for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rural New South Wales farmer has revealed the shocking mental health impacts an indefinitely delayed wind farm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,25980,137,514,515,2733,19158,72610,99797,50030],"class_list":{"0":"post-147772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-farmer","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth","14":"tag-nsw","15":"tag-renewables","16":"tag-wind-farm","17":"tag-wind-prospect","18":"tag-yass"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}