Wind Farms

KevinF

Well-Known Member
Left of field for a stalking site, I'll grant. But I post nonethless. The house we rent while visiting Dumfries & Galloway is adjacent to a proposed (planning permission has just been applied for) nine-turbine farm. The installation will ruin the visual amenity of a beautiful Scottish valley and blight our hideaway with whirling whiteness and low-frequency noise - on the occasions when it is actually turning.

Given that some of us here on SD are privileged to walk in some of the most beautiful and unspoiled parts of the British Isles in pursuit of our quarry, I figured I might find folk here with some experience of successful legal resistance to the WF menace.

PMs gratefully received.

TIA.
 
Biggest problem with that is work and money. Impared visual amminity usually means money coming into a deprived area. The windfarms pay a grant into the communities that are in line of site. The wind farms are not that intrusive once you get used to them unless you are unfortunate enough to live right under one. I am just down the road from the one at Forth and my daughter's house looks directly ont a hugh windfarm. No-one notices. Yes to the visitor the farms are a blight but to the locals they hardly notice. Community halls, improved local amminities such as play parks all stem from the money put in by these projects. Each application is delt with on its merits. One thing is certain though there will be more windfarms.
Also see the radio petition thread. Rural areas need the income from such developements
Jim
 
Biggest problem with that is work and money. Impared visual amminity usually means money coming into a deprived area. The windfarms pay a grant into the communities that are in line of site. The wind farms are not that intrusive once you get used to them unless you are unfortunate enough to live right under one. I am just down the road from the one at Forth and my daughter's house looks directly ont a hugh windfarm. No-one notices. Yes to the visitor the farms are a blight but to the locals they hardly notice. Community halls, improved local amminities such as play parks all stem from the money put in by these projects. Each application is delt with on its merits. One thing is certain though there will be more windfarms.
Also see the radio petition thread. Rural areas need the income from such developements
Jim

Thanks Jimbo. In this case the £30K a year per windmill windfall would be going into the pocket of a big landowner, and he's not going to be building community facilities for his sheep, or his neighbours' livestock. However, taxpayers will be shelling out to enrich him. I'd feel less hostile to the idea if I believed wind was good value.
 
I was very losely involved with Mointeach gun Mhuileann and we were successful in getting the "big" windfarm planned for Lewis refused however other, smaller, windfarms have been approved in the area though they aren't built yet.

The campaign was a long one and it took a lot of time, and I mean 4 years, and resources with a very many people working on it almost full time. I would suggest you take a look at the web site and get in touch.

http://www.mwtlewis.org.uk/


Clearly it is easier to fight hundreds of turbines rather than a few turbines and the people who want to put these things up know that, I think they got that lesson after Lewis, hence why they now apply for small numbers of turbines and then "extend" the site. You need to be careful they aren't playing that game with your 9 turbines, they might just be the first 9.

This is also one of the reasons why it is vital we keep the green nutters from getting any say should there be a hung parliament as they are all for these things, but then they are all for killing several million people each year from malaria as well. In the case of the wind farms it is possible to play divide and conquer with them by pointing out environmental damage caused by the turbines, on Lewis we were lucky enough to get them fighting (almost literally on one occasion) among themselves.

Also the idea that they bring in money just isn't true, as you say the landowners get a pile of cash and they make great claims for the number of jobs they will create, however these jobs are only during the construction phase. The local community rarely has a workforce skilled in windfarm construction and so those employed even in construction are often not local. One windfarm near where I live is controlled remotely from Florida in the USA and only employs one engineer and a PR person in the local area.

Another thing is it is worthwhile making it as difficult as possible as sometimes the company involved, looking to make a quick buck from green grants and the like, will either find that it is more trouble than it is worth or figure that it will take too long to get the planning permission and the grant situation may have changed by then making it uneconomic. Needless to say attempts to make a profit from actually generating electricity from wind turbines are doomed to failure so it is only the government grants that are driving the windfarm boom. Once the grants are gone the turbines will be abandoned in short order as they will be a cost rather than a source of profit for the companies owning them. Who clears up the mess will be interesting to see.

Good luck.
 
Community halls, improved local amminities such as play parks all stem from the money put in by these projects. Jim

As it is only our (taxpayers) money that makes these things financially viable in the first place I would rather the dosh was put straight into the community without lining shareholders pockets. Given that recent figures published show that the damn things are next to useless we should be putting the investment in energy efficiency and micro generation.
 
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