Confused dot com of South Holland
No, not an advert for an insurance company, it's how I feel about this country's attitude to wind power. 'They're the best thing since sliced bread' ....'The companies only do it because the government gives massive subsidies'....'We must have them because of global warming'.............'They're completely useless because the wind doesn't blow all the time'...........'The Danes have stopped building them'...........'The Danes love them to death and are building even more'. Get my point?
However, my confusion is not important, what is important is the attitude of those in power and who have influence. I received a propaganda document from some of these people today and the inside cover was covered in all sorts of logos, many of them from energy companies. the cover letter was badged by the TCPA and here's the rub, TCPA stands for Town and COUNTRY (my emphasis) Planning Association.
The document itself is called Community Energy: URBAN (my emphasis again) planning for a low carbon future. Section 5.7 of the document is called Rural Hinterland and page 57 contains the extraordinary statement .."it is likely that the best onshore sites for wind turbines will be in the rural hinterland between towns and cities." Just in case you're still wondering what my point is, delete rural hinterland from the above quote and enter South Holland, or just about any other part of Lincolnshire come to that!
So, an organisation with COUNTRY in its title is promoting a document about URBAN planning that promotes the targetting of rural areas for future wind farms. If the case for wind turbines was made and unchallengeable, dumping all these turbines in the countryside would be bad enough, but given the mixed messages, spin and outright BS that still continues to be churned out of this subject, such outright support for this attitude to our rural areas is a disgrace!
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.."it is likely that the best onshore sites for wind turbines will be in the rural hinterland between towns and cities."
NEVER!
As we are not going to build these in built up areas this only leaves the areas in between in the same way that we tend not to have great fields of corn in the middle of major cities.
But what is the problem? Do you not think the turbines that can be seen around South Holland look magnificent?
Surely we need to site these AWAY from built up areas. Indeed we need to site these as far away from civilisation as we can as it is unfair to site one of these in somebodies back garden because they do create noise etc so does that not only leave the countryside and out to sea (and we are building in both)?
I also find the argument that sticking them out in the countryside harms the least number of people unproven. Apart from the visual impact of putting something so large and obtrusive in a place where nothing of this scale previously existed, the noise argument only works if you can be sure that people will actually be far enough away and that is not guaranteed. When the background noise is of a very low level to start with, any increase above that level is noticeable and can therefore have a far greater impact than might be initially expected.
Larger urban areas of our country have a multitude of visual intrusions in and around them already. They also have very high levels of background noise even in the hours of darkness. Suggesting that the rural hinterlands are the best place for these ‘magnificent’ structures is a simplistic argument based more on the lack of critical mass able to build up sufficient support to fight them off more than the suitability.
Within South Hollland some of our residents are faced with the prospect of having their views punctuated by groups of wind turbines in any direction they choose to look. No matter how wonderful you think these look, you can have too much of a good thing!
I don’t have a problem with the principle of reducing the damage mankind has done and continues to do to the world in which we live and I believe that we all need to do our bit to help. However, I do believe that the case for mass wind turbine building in England has yet to be made and that the way public money has had to be thrown at this ‘solution’ makes us all feel uncomfortable about the whole wind energy industry.
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