Planning permission for a £150m wind farm in Northern Ireland has been turned down.

The Doraville Wind Farm was set to be the largest onshore wind farm in Northern Ireland, capable of generating close to 119MW.

Planning permission was sought from SSE Renewables to erect 33 turbines in the Sperrin Mountains, Co Tyrone.

If developed, the farm would have the potential to power 100,000 homes and offset around 95,000t of carbon per annum.

Finely balanced

Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon rejected the application and said the decision was “finely balanced”, weighing up the benefits against harm to an area of outstanding natural beauty.

“In this case, 33 wind turbines would cause considerable harm to the landscape interest of a large part of the Sperrin Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and its unique archaeological, cultural and tourism assets,” Minister Mallon said.

“The economic and environmental benefits of the proposal would not outweigh the harm to these important interests,” she concluded.

SSE Renewables originally submitted its application for planning permission in June 2015 but the project had been updated several times since.