Calderdale’s a soft touch for turbines
Hebden Bridge Times, www.hebdenbridgetimes.co.uk 22 November 2010
Hebden Bridge Times, www.hebdenbridgetimes.co.uk 22 November 2010
If we could trace all the previous residents on the hillside where I live, we could go back a thousand years to find tenants of Adam de Broadottom, or go back 500 hundred years when the Cockcrofts were prominent until almost 200 years ago when, by marriage, the Sutcliffes continued the tradition of building well and caring for the environment.
Throughout the centuries successive families took responsibility for safeguarding our local heritage. In more recent decades further protection came with Listed Building, Green Belt and Special Landscape regulations.
Not any more!
The ancient traditions and modern regulations are thought, by Calderdale Planning Officers and elected councilors, to be of less value than the erection of an 80 foot high wind driven electricity generator called a wind turbine in order to save a few tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
The so-called planners do not even ask if similar emission savings could be made using existing technology on poles only 20 foot high and having far less impact on our cherished landscape.
A planning system that does not require visits to and consultation with affected constituents before coming to a decision, such as the recent approval of the Fallingroyd development, is flawed.
The turbine suppliers must be laughing all the way to the bank and planning to intensify their sales campaign in Calderdale where the council is now considered to be a soft touch when it comes to planning approval.
BRIAN WELLS
Burlees Lane,
Hebden Bridge.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/11/22/calderdales-a-soft-touch-for-turbines/