April 9, 2012
Letters, Wales

Mid Wales turbines the new Treweryn

Western Mail, www.walesonline.co.uk 9 April 2012

The long list of potential problems for Powys residents emanating from the wind energy industry is well known by the leading politicians of Wales.

In a civilised society with caring political leaders, they would impose an immediate moratorium on further developments until major reviews had been established to ascertain the effects of this unprecedented assault on rural communities, given that these might well be calamitous for so many.

Even the flooding of Treweryn for the benefit of Liverpool will pale by comparison.

We desperately need a review on how tourism, the economic lifeblood of Mid Wales, will be affected; an investigation into how the strangulation of Powys main roads for five to seven years or longer by turbine construction convoys is going to affect normal life, businesses and emergency services; and most of all, how being surrounded and imprisoned by massed turbines rising hundreds of feet into the air is going to affect the health and well-being of local people. People unable to escape this imprisonment because their homes are unsellable.

Evidence is now emerging on how catastrophic wind turbines can be on people’s health, but no evidence has yet become available to ascertain the effects likely from such a great mass of turbines in so small an area as Mid Wales, so it is highly probable that we will suffer far greater than what has already come out into the open.

Leanne Wood, the new leader of Plaid Cymru, tells us (March 24) that “Basing our future on depriving the many to feed the greed of the few means building our house on sand,” which is exactly what she intends to do by imposing massed wind turbines upon us, if she has her own way.

When the Welsh Assembly was set up we all hoped it would care for the people of Wales, but sadly this is very far from the case. I’ve put these issues to them but they refuse to entertain any review on wind energy: Environment Minister John Griffiths even mis-quoted to me from an out-of-date review on tourism in Scotland.

Given the scale of the threat it is absolutely vital to conduct up-to-date reviews on these issues. But then, they don’t want to know, do they? As far as Powys is concerned we are living in a virtual Labour dictatorship.

Wales deserves a far higher standard of political leadership in terms of fairness, morality and effectiveness than it has had during the course of the Cardiff administration.

DAVID BELLAMY

Aberedw, Powys


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/04/09/mid-wales-turbines-the-new-treweryn/