WIND TURBINES

I’ve waffled on many occasions about the fact that I do not believe in man made global warming. I believe firstly: who says this temperature is the ‘correct’ one and secondly: it’s cyclical; yet I’d like to think I’m not stupid and fully understand that not putting chlorofluorocarbons and particulates among others into the atmosphere and not land filling hazardous liquids is better than doing so.

For some reason I made a conscious decision not to do a bit about the Vestas closure, mainly because I didn’t really know where I stood on it. As far as I was concerned if no-one in Britain wanted land based wind turbines then no-one in Britain would be wanted to build them – seemed obvious.

I don’t think that anymore. What the workers at Vestas have brought to my attention is the fact that planning application rejections (Councillors given a bit too much power) fly in the face of national government (but more importantly) environmental necessities.

It could be argued that the application refusals are simply reflecting the will of the people – call it NIMBY – clearly ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ applies. Reading, Berkshire is a role model for land based wind turbines, unhidden, unashamedly ‘in your face’ and liked by the good people of the town.

Vestas fit in with global necessities, Government commitments and a delicate local employment situation on the IoW.

Revisit every land based wind turbine planning application – put them in one place on the web and let the public judge their viability, location and appeal (in the case of Reading).