ENERGY giant E.ON has been criticised for using misleading images in promotional material for a planned wind farm.
The firm used images of turbines less than half the size of those proposed for the wind farm in newspaper adverts and fliers.
Now the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled the material was misleading and has told E.ON not to use the same
adverts again.
The images showed turbines that were 61 metres high, but the proposed machines for the West Ancroft wind farm near Berwick-on-Tweed were 125m tall.
A photograph of an existing wind farm in Cumbria had been used for the promotional material.
The adverts and fliers were promoting a public meeting about the proposed development, which will be built about four miles south of Berwick if it is granted planning permission.
Because of the disparity in size between the image and the turbines proposed, the ASA ruled that they "were likely to mislead" and breached the Committee of Advertising Practice Code clause 7.1, which focuses on truthfulness.
E.ON has been told that the adverts must not appear again in their current form and that in general wind turbines used in promotional material must be more representative of the particular development.
A project brochure was also deemed "not sufficiently representative of the likely visual impact".
A third complaint against E.ON's claims relating to the number of homes that could be powered by energy from the 18-megawatt wind farm was dismissed by the ASA.
Colin Wakeling, a resident who lodged the complaints, said: "
All too often, wind-farm developers play down the impacts of their projects on neighbouring communities and claim exaggerated benefits.
"I was surprised that a company of E.ON's size and status should have resorted to such dubious tactics."
He said he thought it important that members of the public had the necessary information to make up their own minds about wind farms.
"There's an awful lot of hype about wind power," he said. "I tend to believe that the benefits are probably largely illusory, or certainly not as great as people make out."
In its response to the ASA, E.ON argued that they had used images of one of their existing wind farms to provide a general, eye-catching image of renewable energy.
The company said the images were used for illustrative purposes only, and were not intended as a depiction of how the West Ancroft wind farm would look. They said they chose the image of Oldside wind farm in Cumbria because it depicted a coastline, which could therefore not be mistaken for the West Ancroft site.
However, in its ruling, the ASA said: "Although we noted E.ON's argument that the graphic was merely a generic image of a wind farm used for the purposes of promoting E.ON's public exhibitions on the proposed development, we considered that the image was likely to give readers an indication of the impact of the proposed wind-farm development.
"Because of the disparity in size between the image and the turbines proposed for the West Ancroft site, we concluded that the ads were likely to mislead."
A spokeswoman for E.ON said: "This is the first time that we have been ruled against by the ASA. We had no intention to mislead people and were trying to represent how a generic wind farm would look.
"As a result of this ruling, we are now reviewing our procedures going forward to ensure that this does not happen again."
The proposed eight-turbine wind farm is currently being considered by Northumberland County Council.
Since the adverts appeared, the turbines have been reduced in size to 115m.
E.ON is one of the biggest players in the UK wind-farm sector.
