It started with a community in uproar and ended with the landscape changing forever, but now this saga has a new chapter

Almost two decades ago residents in the towns and villages near vast moorland straddling Greater Manchester and Lancashire were left in uproar.

In the mid-2000s, plans had been submitted to build 26 wind turbines on a large area between Rochdale and Rossendale. The Scout Moor Wind Farm project sparked the beginning of a turbulent saga that continues to this day.

Now, almost 20 years later, people in Rochdale, Edenfield, and Rawtenstall are faced with yet another plan for a wind farm - and this one is expected to be England’s biggest.

What has been named ‘Scout Moor II’ would see 21 bigger and more powerful wind turbines built next to the ones already standing on the moorlands. They would be capable of powering around 100,000 homes per year, which is around 10 per cent of Greater Manchester’s needs, according to the renewable energy developer Cubico Sustainable Investments.

For the people of Norden, who live directly south of the current wind farm, this is all too familiar.

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It's involved the type of battles between bitter rivals you would expect in a blockbuster film series. There have been winners and losers on both sides.

Local politician Coun James Gartside has represented the village of Norden since the 1980s, and he’s not sure what the community's response will be this time. Back in the mid-2000s when the first wind farm was tabled by Peel, the Norden councillor was amongst the many people opposing the plans in his area as well as other villages on the periphery of the moors.

They even managed to rope in television presenter, author and environmental campaigner David Bellamy to stop the new turbines. The campaigners feared the