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Our fabulous countryside is being ravaged by hundreds of wind turbines
Credit: The Herald, www.heraldscotland.com 1 April 2011 ~~
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John Birkett’s letter on windfarms (March 31) makes sense.
We do need to know that the extra electricity generated by turbines is more than the energy used up in their establishment and use, and that they give an economic return for everyone, not just landowners and operators.
There is stark evidence of failure to prove this for those of us who live in the Stinchar Valley in South Ayrshire. Our fabulous and until now unspoiled countryside is being ravaged by hundreds of turbines. With a dozen windfarm sites already established and a further 20 or more in various stages of planning, our area of South Ayrshire will soon be dominated by them on every hill top. If you are familiar with the villages of Barr, Pinwherry, Barrhill, Colmonell and Ballantrae, come and visit us, and see how the windfarm promoters are already despoiling our views, and understand that they are only the start.
Our regular visitors are going elsewhere this summer, and we can’t blame them. Beautiful homes in what was previously a hugely attractive area are now worthless: who would buy a house near flickering, noisy intrusive windmills? Yet all our pleas fall on deaf ears. The windfarm industry seems to be favoured uncritically by our politicians and our scant resident population has no say. Relentlessly the number of turbines increases month by month.
As a matter of interest, why are they called windfarms? They are certainly not farms – they don’t produce crops or animals. A more accurate name for them is wind factories. Each turbine is a small industrial area, with roads leading up to it and concrete and metal structures in place, grinding out an industrial product (on the rare occasions that it can). No other industry would be given permission to build factories in a rural area that depends on tourism for its main income. Come to the Stinchar Valley, walk round the turbines already there, look at the plans for more, and estimate the roads that will have to be built and enlarged to service them. Look around at what we had before these structures were imposed upon us, and weep a little. Then join us in our fight to stop any more being approved.
We residents of South Ayrshire are few, and vulnerable to the pressures of the turbine companies. If you have good memories of a visit to our villages, valleys, hills and coast, give a little time to helping us. It will soon be too late.
Dr Tom Smith,
The Croft, Pinwherry, Girvan.
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