February 19, 2012
Scotland

Windfarm ‘tsunami’ under the spotlight

Fife Today, www.fifetoday.co.uk 19 February 2012

As Fife faces what is being labelled as “a tsunami” of applications for windfarms – everything from industrial scale developments to back garden turbines – the contentious issue is set to come under the spotlight at a public meeting in St Andrews on March 1.

Entitled Is Wind the Answer?, the debate will feature five expert speakers and focus on the pros and cons of wind energy.

The event has been organised by members of Cameron Community Council, whose chairman, Gordon Ball, told the Citizen: ”Wind power is a relatively new phenomenon in Fife and many local communities are struggling to understand what it means for them. People are frightened and concerned by the prospect of these turbines.

“As the wind applications have proliferated, so have our questions. As a community council, it’s part of our job to make sure our communities have accurate information about the windfarms and turbines we are being asked to live with.“

background

Last summer, the community organisation invited John Mayhew, director of the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland, to speak at a hugely successful public meeting when he explained the background to the Government’s plan to make Scotland the “Saudi Arabia of wind.”

Mr Ball added: ”His talk was impressively balanced and informative. There was no end to the questions from the audience and many people were disappointed to have missed him.

”We have now invited other experts to St Andrews with huge experience of the impact of wind development across Scotland and we are encouraging anyone curious about the subject to come to St Andrews Town Hall.”

Joining Mr Mayhew on this occasion will be Derek Birkett, the former grid control engineer of Northern Scotland and author of When will the Lights Go Out; Scottish MEP Struan Stevenson, who chairs the European Parliament’s Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development Intergroup; Dave Bruce, who has wide-ranging knowledge on all aspects of wind farm development; and Graham Lang, a local expert on the planning process for wind turbines and co-founder of EFTAG, an internet site which maps all past and present turbine proposals in East Fife.

Gordon Ball will also chair a question and answer forum and the meeting is free and open to all.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/02/19/windfarm-tsunami-under-the-spotlight/