May 27, 2015
England

Furious villagers pledge to fight off third application for wind farm in Churchover

By Joanna Hunt | The Rugby Advertiser | 26 May 2015 | www.rugbyadvertiser.co.uk

Furious villagers are urging people to fight against a new application for a wind farm in their ‘cherished countryside’.

Residents in Churchover have already fought off two planning applications for a subsidised wind farm but a third application from Renewable Energy Systems (RES) was recently submitted to Rugby Borough Council.

The Swift Wind Farm development would be built on land near Cestersover Farm and consist of four turbines with total heights of 126.5m.

Lorne Smith, co-ordinator of Against Subsidised Windfarms Around Rugby, said the wind farm would destroy Churchover’s cherished countryside.

“These subsidies are a regressive tax that gives greedy speculators, overseas turbine manufacturers and agricultural land-owners millions, while making us pay double for electricity than the competitive normal rate,” he said.

“The setting of the heritage church, that has dominated the beautiful meandering Upper Swift Valley for 1,000 years, will be industrialised and ruined.”

RES development manager Dan Patterson said: “Despite the fact that the vast majority of the British population backs wind generation (with studies showing wind energy to receive high popularity ratings of 70 per cent from across the UK), we have found there can be considerable misconceptions about the technology, one being the impact of wind farm subsidies on consumers’ electricity bills.

“A recent survey undertaken by OnePoll and commissioned by RenewableUK, has revealed that people think that subsidies for wind power are over fourteen times the amount they actually are.

“The cost of supporting wind energy is in fact much lower than people think: with records from Ofgem quoting as little as 35p a week per household, equating to £18 per household a year.

“Wind energy is not the only technology which receives support from Government however it is the cheapest form of renewable energy currently available, and therefore plays a valuable role in the UK’s energy mix.”

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2015/05/27/furious-villagers-pledge-to-fight-off-third-application-for-wind-farm-in-churchover/