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Support your local wind farm
Posted by graham on 9 July 2004.
Telling Glastonbury festival goers about Yes2wind.com
At this year's Glastonbury festival I was one of the volunteers asking people to sign letters to support wind farms. This was part of Greenpeace's campaign to promote wind as a vital solution in the fight against climate change and to stop the threat of nuclear power. Festival-goers were asked to sign a letter of support for their local wind farm or Glastonbury's local wind farm which is proposed next to Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station.
I've done a lot of volunteering for GP before, so I wasn't nervous about public communication work, particularly at Glasto where everyone's so friendly. I didn't know much about the Yes2wind campaign beforehand, but we had comprehensive briefings and in the end I was pleased to have had the chance to learn about something so important.
The public were more interested in signing our letters than in the bribes we thought we'd need (lollys, badges, competitions) and so the job was simpler and easier than we'd all expected. In the end we collected over 1,200 letters in support of Hinkley - Glastonbury's local wind farm - and a total of over 2,000 letters for Hinkley and other wind farms around the UK. These will then be sent to local planning offices so that decision-makers can see visible support for wind projects on the ground.
The most interesting thing I learnt about public attitudes to wind was that while everyone knew that some people objected to windfarms on aesthetic grounds, of the thousands of people we talked to I only met one who didn't like the look of them himself. It reminded me that there is widespread public support for alternative energy technologies, and that although the anti-wind brigade make a lot of noise when a wind farm is planned in their neighbourhood, most of us would much prefer that to the alternative - a nuclear power station!
Graham Thompson, Greenpeace volunteer
Support your local wind farm at Yes2wind.com
Support your local communities (not windfarming)
Profits and Windfarms
I was brought up in the upper Avon valley , Glyncorrwg, but have lived for the last 20 years in Dublin. On a recent visit to Glyncorrwg I was amazed at the transformation of this once run down mining village into the thriving and attractive village that it has now become. I was informed about the plans to locate a number of wind turbines in the village by ECO2 and Gamesa and thought that this might be an ecollogically sound idea. I assumed that the wind farms would be located at the top of the valley and out of sight.
I then found out that over 95% of the village people were against this plan and visted their action plan internet site www.glyncorrwgaction.org.uk . The site shows the effects that these monstrosities will have on the village and the reaction of the people of Glyncorrwg against the plans. The turbines are to be located in clear sight of all the inhabitants of Glyncorrwg. The companies involved are not listening to the people and are trying to bulldose the scheme through the various planning processes without thought to the environmental impact on the village or it’s people.
In Ireland we do have windfarms but they are always located away from local habitations. Wales should follow Ireland’s lead and not let big business bully small communities in accepting eye-sores that are far worse than the slag heaps that dotted the upper Avon valley upto the late sixties. When my family first arrived in the upper Afan valley there was employment through the coal mines, these were closed down in the sixties, and people then obtained jobs in the Steel works in Port Talbot. Lay offs resulted in Glyncorrwg being blighted again. Through the neglect of the eighties and early nineties Glyncorrwg was decimated. Only by intelligent planning and the imagination of the local inhabitants did Glyncorrwg manage to achieve a stability and pleasant outlook by developing small, and environmently friendly, projects with regards to rural regeneration has it become one of the primier destinations for mountain biking, and generated real economies for the local inhabitants.
I have visited the ECO2 web site and while their asperations are for “carefully managed and environmental issues” I think that on the ground they concentrate more on the commercial concerns. Limited discussions have occurred with the local residents and ECO2 are somewhat ingenious when they state that they “will work closely with all key stakeholders”. If the windfarms where moved further up the valley well beyond South Pit they would be accessable, viable and out of sight. ECO2’s application is effectively placing the turbines in clear site of the village (perhaps there is a cost saving to ECO2 in doing this ?).
While these windfarms may be ‘environmently friendly’ to Assmbly Members in Cardiff, that assertion can hardly be made if you live in the village, have obstructed sight of some marvoulous scenary, have sound pollution from the turbines, and have the disruption to local business caused by reduced tourism. Even Peter Hain is questioning as to whether the implementations of TAN8 are viable, and are being handled in the real interests of Wales and its people.
I urge you all to fight against this wanton distruction of our environments.