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Decision to put brakes on wind turbine expansion was right one
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I am writing to congratulate Copeland Borough Council’s planning committee on having the good judgement to reject the application to build a windfarm at Pica.
Despite considerable pressure, the committee decided that the visual impact of such a development on the community, and the local environment, would be unacceptable and that it should not proceed.
We have all seen the spread of turbines across neighbouring Allerdale, starting with a few small ones and now increasing numbers of 350ft-plus monstrosities and we can judge for ourselves the negative impact on their communities, landscape and wildlife. It can only be imagined what the long-term impact on tourism must be for an area that allows itself to be blighted in such a way.
On a recent trip to Carlisle one breakfast time, with the outside temperature at five degrees centigrade, I saw no turbines operating at all and one has to ask when do these things perform a useful function, given that they have to be backed up by conventional generation stations and can only be relied upon for an average of six hours out of every 24!
Well the apparent answer to their usefulness is that they line the pockets of two types of “farmers”, the developers, or “subsidy farmers” and their shareholders, those who make money out of sticking up these German and Danish made windmills at taxpayers’ expense and, sadly, local farmers who, regardless of the impact on their neighbours and local communities, take the money on offer for hosting these things.
Another group of people who like wind turbines are of course the “professional environmentalists”, who behave as though the rest of us don’t care about or understand such concepts. For example, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth used to claim to champion our downtrodden communities against the big battalions of the nuclear and coal industries. Now they criticise the same communities for rejecting big developers and their wind turbines because we can’t grasp the global issues and their environmental priorities and should therefore be ignored.
Well they all got their comeuppance, courtesy of Copeland planning committee and I for one am very grateful that our often-criticised borough councillors showed the courage of their convictions.
Jacqui Knowles
Rheda Park, Frizington
12 April 2007
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