I am sorry that the web site updates have not been so frequent over the last month. The reason for this is that all our effort was being put into producing our Third Party Objection Document which was delivered to Selby District Council on 20 August.

We hope to make the document available via this web site so please watch for futher information. I am sorry but we would not be able to e-mail the document because the file size would be too large for most e-mail systems.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who contributed information and text. You might not see your actual words , but it all went into the final production version, even if only as one of the many good ideas.

Stop Bishop wood objection document submitted.

Earlier in the week the stop Bishopwood team also submitted an objection document and very comprehensive it looks. Further information in due course.

Opposition to Wind Farms - Grows in Germany

Aire valley to be filled with turbines See our new map with windfarm sites and turbine numbers and locations.

Climate change on climate change It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers."

Government pipe dream of producing 25% of our power from the wind

More reports of serious noise complaints from the USA

Anti Wind Turbines Candidates in German Elections

BRANDENBURG CITIZENS PRESENT 18 ANTI-WINDFARM CANDIDATES TO THE ELECTIONS

Press release from the European Platform Against Windfarms and (name of your association)

Date: 21 August 2009

Reacting against the decision of the State of Brandenburg to considerably increase the already vast areas covered by windfarms, a local Volksinitiative (Popular Initiative) petition was launched, which gathered 27,000 signatures against the State's decision.

Note : the State of Brandenburg is the "Land" around Berlin. Its capital is Potsdam, and Berlin itself constitutes another Land. Germany is a federal state comprising 16 "Länder".

The Brandenburg constitutional laws allow the people to present a list to the elections without forming a political party, so the Popular Initiative decided to carry their protest further. They are now presenting 18 candidates to the state elections, outside the party system.

They are neither "left" nor "right", and seek to remain what they are: an independent "political formation" whose platform is to oppose the further degradation of the countryside by windfarms, as well as the current water policy of their government.

They are not supported by any political party, and they are not looking for political alliances. They just don't want more windfarms, and would like their voice to be heard. The elections will take place on September 27th.

Increasingly, many politicians violate their own laws. Entire countries are handed over to powerful windpower lobbies who remodel the landscape as they see fit. Wildlife reserves and historical landmarks cease to be protected so as to accommodate private financial interests. In the circumstances, it is no surprise to see people voting against the traditional parties who have betrayed them.

We, the European Platform Against Windfarms, representing 360 associations from 19 European countries, give our full support to the Volksinitiative. We approve of their action and wish them a resounding success at the coming elections.

May reason prevail. We cannot allow the misguided policies of our present leaders to disfigure natural, monumental, and cultural Europe, turning it into an industrial wasteland from Lapland to Gibraltar. They won’t even respect World Heritage sites and monuments (such as Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy, where we are organising an international protest march on September 26th). There appears to be no limits to the subsidised greed that has been unleashed.

It is high time to rethink Europe's windfarm policy.

EPAW

www.epaw.org

Woodlane and Bishopwood Planning application - latest info 3 July

Prowind Canada face opposition because of health risks from wind turbines
Cleek hall / Cliffe proposal - Click here for more info - the 4th new wind farm proposal near Selby.
Selby Times reports on Public meeting and threat to house prices
Business rates for wind turbines to be increased - treasury wakes up to excess profits being made
Goats dying near turbine in Taiwan
500 turbines for Yorkshire
Whitelees wind farm to receive £1billion subsidy paid by us.

Climate change on climate change - there is a growing body of opinion at the level of National Governments that global warming might not be quite what it has been claimed. The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinction's, rising oceans.

A pipe dream of six turbines a day until 2020
Lord Hunt has made one of the most absurd claims that can ever have been uttered by a British minister, writes Christopher Booker.

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More noise complaints from the USA
The response by wind farm operators to noise complaints is consistent - they always say that they comply with regulations and that complaints are rare. So why is it so easy to find so many serious complaints by a simple bit of research on the Internet. This article is about residents in North Dakota. As always the central issue is how close to homes the turbines are being built and in the USA they have been building closer to homes than they have been doing in the UK. Where the USA leads, the UK follows and the sites near Selby all appear to be following the US lead of putting giant turbines ever closer to homes in spite of the wealth of evidence that noise can be a serious problem. Elsewhere turbines have been ordered to stop due to noise complaints

Planning application for Woodlane & Bishopwood - Expected soon

30 June - At close of business on Tuesday 30 June the revised applications had not been received. That makes it more than 8 weeks since the partial submission. The revised ( complete ? ) application is now expected to arrive in early July. When they do arrive they will need to be validated and this will take a day or so - an e-mail update will be issued as soon as we know that the applications are in and available.

Once again can I please ask that you do not barrage Selby District Council with phone calls - I will let everybody registered on the e-mail list know as soon as I have further information and will update the website shortly afterwards. Please do not submit letters of objection until we have had time to determine the valid planning grounds on which people can object.

23 June The applications have still not yet been validated. Selby District Council are making sure that they have absolutely all the information they need to process the applications and are not prepared to start until everything has been supplied.

4 June - The Selby Times reports that Prowind and North Energy have shown "bumbling incompetence" with their planning application.
2 June - the problem is to do with there being three wind farm applications in a small area.
28 May - Neither the Bishopwood nor the Woodlane applications have been validated due to technicalities.
27 May Revised application for Woodlane received as expected see below. Bishopwood application received at the same time.
22 May - Revised planning application expected by 27 May for Bishopwood and Woodlane.
18 May - Missing drawings expected during week commencing 18 May
8 May update - additional documentation referred to below not yet supplied
5 May update - the application is missing some documentation and has not yet been validated.
1st May - Prowind delivered the planning application for Woodlane wind farm. We do not have details of the number of turbines or their location but believe that it was for the 14 turbines as revealed by Prowind at their exhibition in January. The next step is for Selby District Council Planning Department to validate the proposal and then to load the details on their public access planning portal - access via this link If you have any problems please get in touch.

If you wish to receive further information as soon as it becomes available please register with us. Just drop us an e-mail with full contact details including e-mail and full address.

People who already receive our "Information about Woodlane Wind" farm briefings will automatically receive the latest updates. Briefings are sent out before the web site is updated.

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Prowind Canada face opposition because of residents concern over health risks

Prowind proposals in Canada to build large turbines very close to homes have met with strong local opposition because of concern about health risks. Some doctors have reported that low-level noise and vibrations coming from the turbines cause everything from headaches and queasiness to heart problems, depression and insomnia. Other doctors say there is no evidence the turbines cause any health problems or even have the potential to do so. However the province is creating an oversight office specifically tasked to monitor the “ongoing health and environmental impacts” of various renewable energy projects, including wind farms.

Wind farms could lower Selby District House prices

See the report in the Selby Times which comments on the Public Meeting in Monk Fryston on 8 June.

Business rates to be increased on Wind Turbines - according to the Times

Wind energy companies say the government is “giving with one hand and taking with the other".
The BWEA and many of the wind energy companies claim that wind energy will no longer meet targets and many wind farms will no longer be viable. For structures which ruin the landscape the rates look low to me compared with the value and payment for a typical home.

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Health impact of wind farms - The wind farm killed my Goats

There are many reports of people suffering ill health as a result of living close to wind turbines. Some illness seems to associated with not being able to sleep because of noise or due to low frequency vibration. The health page on the web site provides more information and links.

However it is always of concern to me that some stories are exaggerated. I also like to see consistency in the information and I was puzzled why if humans were suffering ill effects, the same was not happening with animals. The wind farm industry often portray happy cows grazing under turbines.

After seeing a report of a flock of goats living close to a wind farm in Taiwan dying I am convinced that the health impacts are serious and more widespread, even extending to animals. Read for yourself the story about the goats. They were seen awake and standing up at night when they should have been asleep. Many have since died.

The BBC news report

Construction industry report

The solution in this case was the purchase of new land for the farmer away from the turbines. What remedy will we be offered if people cannot sleep due to noise and suffer ill health due to the close proximity of turbines?

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Even more wind turbines planned for Yorkshire - now 500++ From Doncaster to Darlington

but none around York because they are such a blot on the landscape!

We have done some more research and are now able to show on a map the full extent of the the proposed wind farm sites and how much land they will take up. The turbines on the maps are shown by the dots in the solid coloured areas. The coloured areas mark the full extent of sites as already submitted in planning applications or plans in the course of being prepared. We know there are also others which we have not yet shown. In total this must be like building over an area of land about the same size as Leeds. All this is supposed to be green. Test yourself - can you identify the sites - Loftsome Bridge (2) , Woodlane (14), Byram (9) , Darrington (6), Cleek Hall (5), Rusholme (12) and Aire and Calder (15). As it says above the plan is for turbines from Doncaster to Darlington. Hensall by the way is only a test mast so far - my guess is that will be a proposal for another 5 turbines.

See the Yorkshire Post for further information - Seeing red over green Fears of blight grow

By the way the Yorkshire post quotes 1100 MWatt as the power output for the 449 turbines proposed, this is the maximum theoretical output. When variation in wind speed is allowed for the average power generated over a year would be between 200MW and 250 MWatt. When there is no wind , or it is less than about 9mph there will be no power at all. To replace Eggborough would require about 2000 turbines. So you would need to cover much of the Yorkshire Countryside with turbines and even then you would need Eggborough ready and available for when the wind drops.

The Yorkshire Post has understated the number of turbines proposed because the 30 in our three proposals are not included in the 449.

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I do not plan to run a news item every day, if you want that I suggest you bookmark Windwatch. From time to time I will add links to exceptionally good articles. For any item clicking the box will open another browser window with the news item.

Whitelee wind farm to receive £1billion subsidy - paid by us.
See the report in the Telegraph - the following is an extract:-

Last week the BBC and various newspapers excitably greeted the opening by Alex Salmond of Whitelee, "Europe's largest onshore wind farm", 140 giant 2.3 megawatt turbines covering 30 square miles of moorland south-east of Glasgow. It was happily reported that these would "generate" 322MW of electricity, "enough to power every home in Glasgow". They won't, of course, do anything of the kind. Due to the vagaries of the wind, this colossal enterprise will produce only 80MW on average, a quarter of its capacity and barely enough to keep half Glasgow's lights on.

It really is time people stopped recycling the thoroughly bogus propaganda claims of the wind industry in this way. Any journalist who still falls for these lies by confusing turbines' "capacity" with their actual output is either thoroughly stupid or dishonest. The truth is that the 80MW average output of "Europe's largest wind farm" is only a fraction of that of any conventional power station, at twice the cost. For this derisory amount of power, the hidden subsidy to Whitelee over its 25-year life will, on current figures, be £1 billion, paid by all of us through our electricity bills.

Read how PWAG won their case to stop the Darrington Wind farm proposal. The developer is now going to appeal.

Comment on the plans to build the offshore wind power stations - Windwatch

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