After a six month pre-Assembly election moratorium on development, as many as 22 applications for new windfarms are now pending in Powys and anti-windfarm activists are organising themselves to oppose them. Famous TV naturalist Professor David Bellamy visited Mid Wales to give his support to anti-windfarm campaigners in Powys this weekend.
On Sunday 8th July, at Cefn Coch near Llanfair Caereinion, Professor David Bellamy, accompanied by the wilderness artist David Bellamy and Christine Lovelock, artist and daughter of scientist James Lovelock, headed a demonstration of over 150 people. Groups from across Wales united in Montgomeryshire to express their opposition to the threat of such gross, unnecessary and highly subsidised destruction of Welsh rural heritage.
The latest statistics available from the government regulator, Ofgem, show about 450 operating onshore wind turbines in Wales. Their total average output of intermittent electricity would need to be trebled merely to match the demand from the Anglesey Aluminium factory. It cannot replace the controllable, secure supply of electricity the factory needs in order to operate.
Local Mid Wales campaigners from the Conservation of Upland Montgomeryshire organisation helped organise the Country Guardian meeting. Speaking after the meeting Dan Munford said:
“We are still waiting for a clear indication of exactly what will come out of the new Labour Plaid coalition in the Assembly regarding TAN 8 and windfarms. In the meantime, whatever governments in London and Assembly claim, it is groups like ours who genuinely care about nature and the Welsh environment. Good planning is about balance. [As Country Guardian chairwoman Angela Kelly has said,] The irreparable ecological damage, loss of amenity and distressing divisions within communities caused by industrial wind turbines far outweigh any benefit of their insignificant and unreliable contribution to our energy needs. Their tiny, intermittent output of electricity and negligible CO2 savings cannot possibly justify the sacrifice of our most potent national symbol and finite resource – the magnificent landscapes of Wales”.
Attached Photo credit to Ray Wood. More photos available (click).
Angela Kelly, Country Guardian
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/07/11/top-tv-naturalist-david-bellamy-joins-150-anti-windfarm-protestors-at-cefn-coch-near-llanfair/