The Battle Continues..

Whilst London newspapers run stories about the potential charges to be brought or not against Chris Huhne, the coalition's Secretary of State for energy & Climate Change,those of us who are battling to protect rural Northumberland from the invasion of investment companies' building of giant industrial turbines continue to make tiny steps towards a clearer and fairer renewables agenda for the whole of our country. It seems that there are more and more MPs in Parliament who are starting to understand just how the present energy policy of subsidising onshore wind is affecting their constituents weekly budget.

The first wind turbine battle which I was involved in was against the proposed turbines just north of Alnwick, on Wandylaw, some five years ago now. Despite a huge campaign from local people, opposition from councillors at, and rejection by, Alnwick District Council, the application went to appeal and the Secretary of State at the time, Hazel Blears, overturned the decision and approved the scheme, subject to some work to be done on removing the threat to RAF flight training and radar impacts. It seems that this has now been achieved and the bulldozers are rolling in over untouched rural countryside in the months ahead.

Those of us who have been campaigning for many years against inappropriately sited giant wind turbines, know that this is at best an inefficient form of green energy which no businessman would invest in without Government funding, and at worst a destructive industry which destroys precious landscapes, and blights the lives of those families who have to live near them. The cost of the Government subsidy ends up on the bills of all electricity users, meaning that the poorest families in Britain are paying for a few investors to grow rich on the back of their rising bills. And all this for a technology that is so unpredictable, the National Grid cannot rely upon it for energy and therefore continues to demand coal or nuclear powered energy which is reliable and controllable.

Last winter for instance, when the temperature hardly rose above freezing for weeks at a time, there was almost no wind. And in the last few months, where there have been good windy days & nights as far as the turbine operators are concerned, the Grid has been unable to take on that power because there was too much at once. What happened? The Grid has to pay the turbine owners a fee to STOP THEM from generating power at a rate of up to 10 times what it would normally pay for electricity. Ludicrous and costing those least able to afford it the most.

We shall continue to campaign and raise awareness at the highest levels of just how damaging, for health and wealth, these uneconomic monsters are. There are other technologies which can be relied upon to generate regular power, such as offshore turbines and solar power, to name but two. If you would like to help us with our campaigns in Northumberland, please contact me on anne-marie@dualthea1.com.