Finally after 3 years of lobbying, and a hearing at the High Court in March 2008, a few weeks ago RES released the background noise data, and professional experts commissioned by Mike Hulme, who is spearheading the Group, have now carried out a preliminary analysis of this data.

This investigation shows that there are indeed serious errors in the data and in RES’ assessment of it. These errors mean that the noise impact of the development is actually greater than RES stated at the Planning Inquiry, and that the protective noise limits contained in the Planning Permission are set too high to offer protection.

Evidence from other wind farms shows that turbine noise CAN cause serious problems for local residents and that turbine noise CAN have impact on properties much further afield than RES has so far acknowledged.

The good news is that largely on the basis of this new evidence permission to take the case to the Court of Appeal has not only been granted but has been granted speedily and in emphatic terms — indicating that there is a strong case to answer.

The Court of Appeal has set a date of 24th and 25th of July 2008 and of course this means funding! Estimates are that a fund of at least £20,000 is required to underwrite costs, and donations and pledges to cover this are URGENTLY needed.

Support for the case to date has been tremendous, both from the local community and much further afield, showing the depth of feeling and concern over the building of an industrial-scale wind turbine power station so close to people’s homes. We have to defend our environment against this defective planning approval. Please help NOW by donating whatever you can.

Donations to the Appeal Fund (made out to ‘Den Brook Judicial Review Fund’) should be sent to: DBJRF c/o Nick Jewell, Lynderies, Heath, Spreyton EX17 5AN

For more information please visit our web site www.denbrookvalley.co.uk, email info@denbrookvalley.co.uk or telephone any of: Mike & Basia Hulme (01363 82220),
Bruce & Karen Everett (01647 231603), Nick Jewell (01647 231553), Claire Hodgson (01363 82628), Richard & Vicki Turner (01363 82876), Muriel Goodman (01837 82626), Ruth Harvey (01837 82838), Anne & Graham Ramsey (01647 24317).

Permission has been given to appeal the recent high court decision and we go to the Court of Appeal in only three weeks time, on 24th July — the second time we’ve been through the court system in only four months The Appeal will crucially re-examine the ‘installed capacity’ balancing procedures along with a recently discovered invalid and flawed noise assessment undertaken by the developer here in Devon.

After persevering for nearly 4 years we at last managed to obtain the developer’s noise monitoring data only a few weeks ago. This was not available at the Planning Inquiry nor at the High Court Hearing. The judge at that Hearing, whilst not upholding our claim, was severely critical of the developer for withholding this data. It was subsequently handed over and we learnt useful lessons in the process — if you are seeking to obtain your background noise and wind-speed data in order to independently evaluate your developer’s noise-assessment, contact us, we would be happy to assist.

An independent professional evaluation of the noise data here has revealed an erroneous analysis and prejudicially flawed noise assessment by a supposedly leading developer with Queen’s and other prestigious awards bestowed upon it. This recently discovered hard and factual evidence leads us to be cautiously optimistic that the Appeal Court will uphold our legal challenge and overturn the planning permission.

Success would set an important precedent to assist all concerned about noise and the vagaries of ‘installed capacity’, and trying to gain some justice in this tortuous wind farm debacle.

It will come as no surprise that we are strapped for funds to underwrite the potential £20k costs exposure for the Appeal Court case. We have raised a massive amount locally and nationally over the past 4 years to get this far but we urgently need your financial support to ensure we are able to take this important legal challenge through to a conclusion.

For more information and for details of where to send your contribution please visit our web site www.denbrookvalley.co.uk.

Many thanks.

2nd July 2008

Mike H
Den Brook Judicial Review Team
info@denbrookvalley.co.uk

Donations made out to “Den Brook Judicial Review Fund” can be sent directly to:

Nick Jewell, Lynderies, Heath, Spreyton, Devon, EX17 5AN, UK

If you would like to present your views during the hearing, you must attend the opening session at 10am on the first day. The Planning Inspector will take your details and schedule some time for you to speak, probably during the second week.

Click here for more information.

As you may know, there are plans to erect three huge wind turbines in the beautiful countryside of Benington.

These three turbines, reaching 400 foot each, will destroy the beauty and peace of such a serene area, and will be seen for many miles around.

I, myself, am not against wind energy. However, I feel that these turbines will destroy an area of extreme beauty, and are completely inappropriate.

The author Frederick Forsyth has said, ‘If a competition was held to find the most inappropriate site in England for three massive turbines, Benington would win’.

I felt moved to write a song in order to express my concerns at these plans.

I ask you all to visit my song ‘’Beauty Corruption’ on youtube, by clicking on this link (or just type Becky Godlee in youtube).

The video was filmed at the proposed turbine site. As it says in my song, ‘Just put it on the motorway, where it can be forgiven …’

You can also download the song in mp3 format from the website, at: www.stopbeningtonwindfarm.co.uk, where you can find details of how to write to the planners to express your views and concerns. We know that if enough people write, this inappropriately located scheme can be stopped.

Many thanks, and I hope you enjoy the song!

Becky Godlee (age 17)
email: becky@godlee.com

Go to: Stop Benington Wind Farm (click on one of the pictures below):

But that is not the case.

The Government repeatedly states that they want to see 25 to 33 gigawatts of electricity generated from wind. That is about half of the UK’s total electricity requirements. If this amount were ever achieved, it would have to have at least 33 GW of coal or gas back-up. That is because there will be a few days every year when there is no wind — i.e., we would be 33GW short of national demand.

Of course at the moment there exists about 10GW of ’spare’ back-up capacity which is used if a major power station breaks down. This is enough to back up the current wind carpet without any extra. However, as the installed wind carpet grows, more and more back-up is needed. In a House of Lords Select Committee Inquiry into the EU’s 20% Renewable Energy Target on Monday 17th March 2008, Mr Christopher Barton (Director of the UK Renewable Energy Strategy Project at BERR) said, ‘the intermittency issue is not an insurmountable problem, albeit that surmounting the problem comes with a cost so, for example, there will need to be greater overall generating capacity in the uk as you introduce more intermitent generation.’

So there you have it. Wind power requires that further back-up capacity is constructed and that can only be coal or gas fired.

So much for CO2 savings!

– FELLS newsletter no. 16, Spring 2008

The District Council undertook a period of monitoring at our home last October. They came to measure the noise for an hour a night on 26 nights. On the basis of this they decided that there was no statutory noise nuisance, and although there were three minor breaches of the planning permission they did not feel it appropriate to prosecute. This “result” then went into the public domain and was published widely as a result of being incorporated in a BWEA release to its members. (Although no mention was made of the three minor breaches.) Statements based on this release were then submitted as proofs of evidence to several planning Inquiries across the UK. Some other statements, based on this information — but going further and attacking us personally for having hypersensitive hearing have also been sent to Development Control Council members in various Local Authorities, who were due to discuss planning applications in their own areas!

We complained to the Ombudsman about the way the whole noise complaint has been handled, and she has yet to report on this. However more information came to light last week when it became obvious, that for whatever reason, the turbines were only operating for a third to a half of their normal output last October. Thus all statements etc are based on flawed information and as no other month in the whole of the wind farm’s operation has ever been so quiet it is no wonder that the Council were able to decide that there was not a statutory nuisance … and yet there were still 3 breaches of condition.

As I said you really couldn’t make it up could you?

And we still have lost our home.

Jane Davis

“Following a press release last week it seems that several of the leading industrial companies in Israel are going to enter the wind business. These are deeply connected to leading politicians. Our ministry of environment is quite hopeless. The future seems bleak.”

From Gibraltar, from Sicily, from the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and now from Israel, day by day more bad news comes in from the main bird migration flyways of the world. For windfarm developers think nothing of erecting their wind turbines in migration bottlenecks. Wind speed and maximisation of profit is their main concern.

Birds are killed by the large blades, whose tips revolve at speeds exceeding 100 mph while deceiving the victims by an appearance of slowness. In Sweden, one wind turbine is reported to have killed 895 birds in one year [ref: California Energy Commission, A Roadmap for PIER Research on Avian Collisions with Wind Turbines in California, Dec. 2002, quoting Benner et al. (1993)].

They also get killed by the powerlines, which are built next to each windfarm to carry puny amounts of this very expensive, intermittent electricity to the grid. According to the report “Protecting Birds from Powerlines”, high tension lines may kill over 500 birds per km per year in migration zones [ref: Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats -- Birdlife International (2003)]. Smaller windfarms may not require high-tension lines, but overhead cables are still needed to connect to the distribution network, and they, too, maim and kill birds that collide in the fog, or at night, or while fleeing some danger.

In short: if someone wanted to set about exterminating the world’s migrating birds, placing windfarms in migration hotspots would be looked upon as best practice.
We are not doing any better in the UK. For instance, the “Bird Sensitivity Map to Provide Locational Guidance for Onshore Wind Farms in Scotland” designates practically the whole of the Western Isles as highly sensitive — except for two areas, one of them being the site where a windfarm project is seeking approval (Pairc).

Yet the Pairc environmental statement predicts the possible death of 66-165 golden eagles as a result of collisions with the giant blades. No other project in Scotland declares that it may kill so many eagles; and the subject of migrating birds is poorly addressed. The applicant for the Pairc windfarm is Scottish & Southern Energy.

The same map marks the whole of the Shetlands as highly sensitive, except for a few tiny yellow spots — presumably where Scottish & Southern Energy plans to erect more wind turbines. How on earth will migrating birds be able to avoid the giant rotors when adverse winds push them towards one of these “yellow spots”? or when they fly or make landfall at night? Yet a bird society is actually supporting a large windfarm project on Shetland. Don’t they know the island is a crucially important staging post for migrating birds?

Until these and many other pertinent questions are answered by the ornithological fraternity, we ask that all those who cherish Britain’s heritage of migratory and other birds ask their favourite bird society why windfarms are allowed in migration corridors, e.g., in the Hebrides or in the Shetlands. Also ask your electricity suppliers how much of the electricity supplied to your homes comes from wind. Details from BWEA’s web site indicate that windfarms supply only 1.5% of Britain’s electricity. Then ask yourselves if the slaughter of our birds is really necessary, and join the thousands who are already campaigning against the erection of these wind monsters across Britain.

March 26th 2008

Professor David Bellamy
Mark Duchamp

Alex.Salmond.msp@scottish.parliament.uk

cc: snp.hq@snp.org, FirstMinister@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

Office of the First Minister
St. Andrew’s House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

Dear First Minister

A National Conversation has been set up by your party to engage the views of the people of Scotland on Independence and the future of our country.

Why is there no National Conversation on wind farms?

Areas of high scenic value in Scotland are under attack by wind developers!

Prior to your election you told the people of Scotland that you would listen to their views.

More than 5,000 people objected to the Barvas Windfarm in Lewis. Will you listen to them or ignore them?

Will SNP be known as the party that helps a rich ‘few’ make vast sums of money through wind farm subsidies, whilst the poor, the vulnerable, the sick and the elderly are expected to suffer increasing fuel poverty?

If consumers of electricity are expected to pay subsidies for wind farms, shouldn’t the people of Scotland have the right to a National Conversation about wind farms?

Golden eagles bring in huge amounts of cash that benefit the ‘many’, not the ‘few’.

Scotland does not need its own Altamont Pass, environmental law suits or massive EU fines.

The purpose of this development: to make money. If breaking EU law results in EU fines, that negates the whole purpose.

Will the people of Scotland perceive “minded to refuse” as being a wishy washy response by a party that wants to lead an Independent Scotland?

Please offer confidence with a decisive, resounding, ‘NO’ to this wind farm development.

I look forward to hearing that this development will not proceed.

Yours sincerely
~~~
Sylvia Wallace

Dear Mr Salmond

Over the past few days it has been reported that you are ‘Minded to Refuse Permission for the Lewis Wind Power development’

I applaud this stance and encourage you to stick to your intention.

Far from being the green solution that it has been claimed as, this development would be very damaging to the environment. Not just the damage to the landscape but the amount of carbon released from disturbing the peat bog would in fact negate any possible benefit gained from the ‘green’ energy.

The promise of jobs for the locals is just smoke and mirrors. I live in Mid Wales and at Cefn Croes the same promises were made — jobs for local people and economic benefits for the local community. None of this is true. There have been no jobs created locally at all. The contractors came in, tore up the landscape, poured masses of concrete into a primary water source, scattered the disturbed peat over the concrete bases in the name of conserving the environment and left. So far the local community are still waiting to see the benefits.

I urge you to refuse permission for this development and to mount a thorough review of your government’s policy on wind energy. An intermittent source of power can never provide the ‘base load’ energy that is required for a civilised society and will only every be a symbolic gesture of ‘greenness’

My husband and I are both artists and for many years we regarded Scotland as our second home, enjoying the unspoilt beauty of her wild places. The prospect of the industrialisation of the most inspirational views in the British Isles fills us with utter despair and we could not bring ourselves to visit Scotland again if it becomes the industrial wasteland that your government is proposing.

Please remember why tourists come to Scotland — for the scenery — don’t destroy it. Please.

With heartfelt feeling.

Yours sincerely
~~~
Jenny Keal

Dear First Minister,

I subscribe to the terms of Mrs Keal´s letter and invite you to ponder the enormity of the loss a windfarm on Lewis would represent. Tourism, wildlife, biodiversity, ruined quality of life for the inhabitants, who massively rejected the project in various polls …

The developer may present a revised plan with fewer turbines. But Lewis must be saved in its entirety. A stain on a beautiful painting is not acceptable, no matter its size. Likewise, placing giant de-facto bird traps within a bird reserve is an act of poaching, no matter their number.

The European Commission has been informed of this threat to the Lewis Peatlands Special Protection Area, and they may bring the matter to the European Court of Justice, who in turn may impose heavy fines that would burden Scottish taxpayers.

It would be regrettable if the Scottish National Party would tarnish its good name with the destruction of Scotland´s wildlife, of its landscape, and of its main renewable resource: tourism.

Yours, faithfully
~~~
Mark Duchamp

Sign the petition at 10 Downing St’s E-Petition site: petitions.pm.gov.uk/no-wind-turbines. You must be a British citizen.