November 24, 2011
England, Letters

Stop tearing down posters and support community

Hunts Post, www.huntspost.co.uk 23 November 2011

OVG (One Vocal Group) has been putting posters up regarding the proposed 77m high wind turbine and 18 storage tanks for liquid propane gas (LPG), because we believe villagers have a right to know what’s going on, and what has been voted for, on their behalf, by our parish council.

We have also been giving information on those posters as to where they can lodge their objection at Huntingdonshire District Council and to sign a petition, if they wish. People were unaware of the applications and have been amazed and angered by the continued lack of village consultation. Removing these posters on a daily basis, as someone has been doing, is a total disservice to our community. We are not “anti-green” or being ‘NIMBY’ – we simply believe that Galley Hill Farm is the wrong location for a wind turbine.

We also believe in the importance of communication.

Some facts: the application for the turbine at “the Gateway to St Ives” is to power an intensive poultry farm – to process 320,000 chickens in and out on a six-week cycle. Dead or alive. The remainder of the power will be fed into the national grid.

The applicant is not a local chicken farmer trying to scratch a living and needing a 77m high wind turbine to do it. The owners of the business are Ranjit and Baljinder Boparan, entrepreneurs from Birmingham. Their privately-owned food empire has estimated sales of around £2billion. They own one of the biggest chicken processing companies in Europe with business operations in the Netherlands and Poland. Their company will greatly benefit from the generous wind turbine feed-in tariffs.

Of course, it’s normal to make profits and most of us eat chicken products. But while these remote, intensive poultry processors gain financially, the residents of Hemingford Grey and Fenstanton will pay a very heavy price indeed. These two villages will be blighted – the turbine will ruin our landscape (particularly towering over our lovely nature reserve at Marsh Lane Gravel Pit), create a drop in house prices, and be a danger (distraction) to drivers using the A14, A1096 and B1040. Don’t we have enough problems already with accidents on the A14?

They don’t erect turbines in Europe now within a 2km distance of dwellings, for several good reasons.

It can’t even be argued that the area will benefit from employment, as the Boparan application for the poultry farm (granted last year) requires only two full time and one part time employees.

So, whoever it is who has been ripping down our posters, if you feel it’s more appropriate to support an application from a huge private international business over the residents of your own village, and the safety of others travelling on the A14/A1096, then please reply to this letter and tell us all why.

ESTHER HARROD

STEVE HERRING

One Vocal Group

Hemingford Grey


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