CAMPAIGNERS have vowed that controversial plans to site three giant wind turbines at an Island beauty spot will be taken to a judicial review.

Members of a group calling itself ThWART say that an environmental impact assessment should be made at the site before allowing plans to increase the size of the planned wind turbines at Limerstone Down, near Brighstone, are given the go-ahead.

Dozens of protestors, some brandishing placards, packed into the council chamber at the Island's development control committee this week to hear the application.

They heard members of the committee unanimously approve plans to increase the size of the giant blades at the site - an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Around 1,000 members of ThWART object to the scheme. There are also high-profile objectors to the wind farm, including TV gardening personality Alan Titchmarsh and Channel Four racing commentator Brough Scott - both of whom have homes on the Island.

Opening the debate, ThWART spokesman John Ogden urged the committee not to be "hoodwinked" into thinking it could not look at the plans for the wind farm again.

He said: "If you grant permission today, we will have to seek a judicial review. This is your decision. If we were to win, and the evidence suggests we would, you would be responsible for the costs."

Earlier, members of the committee were told that planning permission to site a wind farm at the farm was granted in 1995 and renewed last year.

The latest application would increase the size of the blades on the giant turbines from 15.5 metres to 22 metres.

Councillor Jill Wareham, whose Brighstone and Calbourne ward contains the proposed wind farm, told members she had received only about six letters of objection to the plans.

She argued that the wind farm would make the Island more self-sufficient in its energy needs for the future. She said: "It is a contribution to limiting the amounts of green-house gases which cause global warming."

But Councillor Mike Cunningham said that the committee had been delivered a "Trojan horse" by the original decision in 1995 to allow the wind farm to be built.

To cheers from protesters, he said that the committee should not rush into the decision when other alternative energy sources were yet to come.