Letter - Bolam Windfactory

Bolam Windfactory

As chair of Save our Stainmore, a group which has been formed to protect the wild beauty of Stainmore from a proposed wind factory (and to also work towards green initiatives which reduce carbon emissions without totally destroying the environment in which they are placed) I felt compelled to respond to your article "second wind farm planned...and that's just the start".
Mr Moore of the consultancy firm TNEI says that Teesdale will be asked "how much are you contributing"? Perhaps a more pertinent question would be "how much irreplaceable countryside will you sit back and allow to be destroyed with little or no benefit?". As Mr Moore should be well aware (but neglects to mention, for fairly obvious reasons) the effect of wind factories on CO2 emissions is insignificant. It is an inescapable fact that the wind does not blow all the time. Back up has to be provided by thermal (coal/gas) power plants to cover this deficit. No conventional power plant has ever been closed because wind power is available - not will it ever be. Power plants used in this way run inefficiently and ironically create more pollution than if they were used all the time. In the case of the Stainmore proposal, the CO2 released during the construction of the wind factory will not be "paid back" during the 25 year life of the wind factory. So we have nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Mr Moore's consultancy has promised that noise "will not be an issue". Try telling that to the people whose lives have been blighted by turbines. Mr Moore does not mention the resonance carried through the ground which drives people from their homes or the fact that a study carried out in 2006 by the French National Academy of Medicine concluded that due to the risks connected with these installations no turbine should be built closer than 1.5km to residences.
To compare the noise from turbines (day and night, week after week) to that of the occasional noise of farm machinery is at best disingenuous. When the wind does not blow people are on edge, waiting for the drumming to begin again...day after day, month after month.
Mr Moore seems to echo the opinion of a former turbine company MD who said that these companies look for areas where the people are NGAs - Naive, Gullible and Apathetic.
Mr Lowe, a parish councillor, makes the tragically mistaken comment "We might get some cheap energy out of it". That is not how it works, Mr Lowe. Wind factories are built for one reason only - they make vast profits for their operators due to the enormous government subsidies which are paid to them. Guess who has to foot the bill for these? Yes, you and I. Our electricity is more, not less expensive because of the turbines. As the European Platform Against Windfarms states, this system allows "scandalous personal fortunes to be built at the expense of taxpayers and consumers without any real ecological benefit, quite the contrary"
The voters of the Parish will not forget statements made by councillors when their house values are reduced by 20% (as they possibly already have been due to the mere fact that the proposal exists). I suggest they research the cases of Barry Moon and Jane Davis.
The local population needs facts not propaganda by interested parties such as Mr Moore. I am sure that the Bolam Area Action Group will provide the information local people need in order to make their own decision and we wish them well.