6 of the 14 Woodlane turbines as they might appear from Birkin Road, less than 1km from West Haddlesey. Gateforth wood seen behind.
Content © Stopwoodlanewindfarm 2008 - 2011
Should we destroy the Countryside and Rural Environment and say it is to save the Environment?
Should we destroy the Environment simply to make a profit for landowners and developers, at the expense of those who live there?
We all know the earths resources are finite. We cannot go on forever burning fossil fuel ( coal, oil and natural gas ) at the rate we have been.
The concept of a wind turbine sounds appealing when you first hear about it. It is only when you start to find out how many are planned, how big they are, how much concrete and steel is required and how little they produce that you realise that they may not be as good as you first thought.
200 turbines are already proposed in the small area around Selby. If they were all built you would see turbines all around you from almost anywhere in the district. As each wind farm applies to add more wind turbines, as they do, the open spaces between the towns and villages would all be industrialised.
This is a very large price to pay, the countryside is scarce and once it is industrialised it is gone forever.
Are we sure that this is the right thing to do, are we sure that the benefits are sufficient to justify such large scale destruction of the countryside.
The Big Issues
Key Issue 4 - Planning and the Localism Bill.
How will it affect wind farm applications ?
So far it is difficult to assess. The wind industry have been busy lobbying and have offered £1k per MW per year as a payment to community funds to offset the pain they will suffer from having a wind farm.
If you have looked at our page explaining the subsidy that wind energy receives you will appreciate that they are offering to give back a very small amount of the extra money that they receive from consumers by way of the Renewable Obligation Subsidy scheme.
Those who lose up to 20% of the value of their homes and suffer loss of their rural environment will not see a small donation to a community fund as sufficient recompense - when the wind farm owners are making £million per year in profit.
The above cartoon was copied from EPAW.