A row over aircraft safety near Middlesbrough’s home ground is blocking a plan to install wind turbines at top football clubs around the country.

Robert Goodwill, the aviation minister, is among those sucked into the increasingly acrimonious dispute that has stopped the first turbine – a 136-metre installation at Riverside stadium –being built.

Middlesbrough was to act as a testing ground for the Empowering Wind group, which hopes to roll out to top-flight grounds around the country.

Paul Millinder, from the group, said it was a “disaster” that the local airport was asking for £700,000 over 20 years to pay for new radar it said was needed to prevent interference at Durham Tees Valley airport.

“We applied a year ago to undertake this project, which would offset power drawn from the grid and reduce the cost to the stadium. It is a disaster that the position of [aircraft] safety is being misrepresented when our expert witness has shown there is no issue whatever,” he said.

Millinder asked Goodwill to intervene after a report commissioned from a former National Air Traffic Service expert found that the turbine would not have any real effect on radar displays.

Middlesbrough council has installed a condition in the planning agreement calling for the impact of the blades on plane safety to be made good, effectively backing the airport, run by the Peel Group.

Millinder said he had expected to be able to install the wind turbine in the overflow car park at Middlesbrough FC last May but is unable to proceed as long as Empowering is going to have to make payments to upgrade their equipment. Other wind farms in the area have not been hit by similar demands, he claims.

But the airport says Empowering has been aware of the problem since planning permission was given in 2008 but has made little attempt to come up with a solution of its own in the meantime.

The airport added: “The siting of this proposed turbine is much more critical to airport operations than many of the operational turbines in the area. It is in critical airspace on the approach to our runway — just under two nautical miles from the runway centreline where aircraft normally begin their descent to the runway, approximately seven nautical miles from touchdown.”