August 23, 2007
Letters, Wales

Energy debate

Despite detailed and strong objections from all the local community councils surrounding Ammanford and from Neath Port Talbot and Swansea City councils, along with strong detailed and reasoned objections from well-respected and professional organisations like The Council for the Protection of Rural Wales, the Countryside Council for Wales, Cambrian Archaeology, Cadw and the Environment Agency on June 19, Carmarthenshire Council has approved an application to build 16 massive turbines on the Betws Mountain near Ammanford.

This application consists of 16 massive turbines, each 110m high, together with a substation, a construction compound 50m by 30m, containing offices, stores, a car park and fuel store, external switch gear and transformers, a 70m-high steel monitoring mast, the building of 7.3km of roads and the aggregate for these roads will likely come from quarrying the mountain in four different areas.

And where will the 600 to 1,000 tonnes of concrete for each base come from and the concrete for the hard standings for each turbine that will be even larger than the bases?

And what of the ecological and irretrievable damage these massive concrete bases cause as they will remain in the mountain forever, along with kilometres of electric cables?

And the tragedy is Carmarthenshire Council has brilliant policies that are more than adequate to protect our precious environment and which have served us well over the years.

But these are swept to one side because the head of planning in Carmarthenshire told the councillors he had received a letter from the Assembly telling him to ensure renewable energy was installed.

Does this make any sense ?

Apparently this makes sense to Labour-led Wag and Carwyn Jones and his TAN8 – our councils and our opinions don’t matter. To them we are just ignorant payers.

Ceinwen Rees

Pontamman

Ammanford

Evening Post

23 August 2007


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/08/23/energy-debate/