 |
|
WESTMILL WINDFARM,
Watchfield, Oxfordshire. 1999 - 2000 | 2001
| 2002 | 2003
January 2003 VECS campaigning goes up a gear on the back of publicity; more leaflets, apparently house prices will fall by 40% (to the best of my knowledge this hasn't happened anywhere in the UK - not even by 1% -)... and to escape the 'vile' noise you will have to stay indoors. Unsurprisingly villagers in Watchfield and then Shrivenham and Longcot start to get concerned. VECS translate concerns into letters of objection. Letters also start to come in from VECS' friends and relations in Scotland, Somerset, London, the Midlands etc etc. Prior to now there has been a fairly even number of letters of support and objection around 70-100 on either side. Great Coxwell Parish Council become the first parish council to decide to formally object to the planning application. Since the village is over 3km from the wind farm and the parish councillor who came to exhibition in March last year seemed happy with the proposed changes, I am a bit surprised and wonder where the objections have come from. At the planning office the planning file begins to expand as another 100 letters of objection come in, including letters from people I know pretty well, some of whom cheerily say good morning but will not tackle me directly about the wind farm and others who no longer stop to exchange greetings. Oxfordshire Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) enter the fray with a large article in the Oxford Times about how the wind turbines will ''desecrate the landscape''. The paper chose not to seek any alternative viewpoints for the article, but the following weeks edition printed a couple of strong letters of rebuttal. I'm beginning to feel a bit under pressure. The application is due to go to committee... but again gets delayed... The district council in response to criticisms of the visual impact section of the EIA decide to get in an independent consultant ( at around £6,000) to assess this bit of the EIA and the photomontages etc... application delayed until report produced. February 2003 WOW - Windpower Over Westmill. Local people who had seen the VECS leaflets and TV coverage and knew that it was rubbish wanted to respond. A few phone calls and bit of networking resulted in a meeting of nearly a dozen people around the kitchen table and so WOW was formed. Our first actions were to promote the FOE petition for the windfarm and write letters of support to the planning officer and to encourage others to do the same. However several WOWers campaigning energy was taken up with opposing the preparations for war on Iraq. End of February 2003 Attended lecture in Oxford with Government chief scientist, Professor David King. He sees nuclear fusion as the great white hope... He made some remark about the 'energetic inefficiency' of wind turbines, which was a handy opportunity to point out that wind farms are currently the most energetically efficient means of commercially generating electricity, in terms of fossil fuel energy in and net energy out. RSPB write in with letter of support. March 2003 According to the recently published White Paper - by 2020 we could be dependent on imported energy for three quarters of our total primary energy needs. Oxfordshire CPRE organise a "survey" of local residents distributing a letter and questionnaire - which is really a petition - to 1,500 local houses not many letters delivered to any council estates but nearly every large isolated house gets one... (CPRE forget to mention in their letter that there is already planning permission for the windfarm... they don't include any photomontages nor do they mention anything about climate change! Local friends distribute the FOE/Baywind flyer around some villages but decide it's not really worth the effort to follow CPRE around; and also some people react negatively to being lobbied with unsolicited information. Take part in local TV debate with the Honourable Geoffrey Somerset of Oxfordshire CPRE about the windfarm. It's surprising how quickly half an hour can disappear without anything of substance being said. I should have been more aggressive and feel I let him off too lightly... CPRE get 200 odd replies to its survey/petition... of which 75% think the windfarm is a bad idea. I take heart from the fact that only 11% of those surveyed/petitioned chose to respond to object to the application! April 2003 WOW decide to organise a media launch of WOW and... POW-WOW! How many people will turn up??? Lots of last minute postering and emailing. Beautiful sunny and windy day and 100 people turn up, fly kites, make music, picnic and pow-wow. Great event and good to put up a standard and get a real feeling of community of support. Middling media coverage but actual event bursting with Good Energy - much more value... Planning application again delayed due to local elections coming up... should come up end of May... (several VECSers put themselves forward as parish councillors for Watchfield and Shrivenham on an anti-windfarm ticket). Shrivenham Parish Council organises 'The great wind farm debate'. WOW member Nan puts together a power point presentation... I've never done one before... desperately trying to get it right in the half-hour before the meeting begins! Around 100 people turn up to the Memorial Hall... I discover I'm up against 3 VECSers... a retired Air Commodore, a director of a large engineering company and a retired Professor of something undisclosed ... I fluff my presentation, running out of time and miss out the all important final bits. However, my VECS opponents, despite their air of authoritativeness aren't very well informed or expert. The Professor recently back from a trip investigating wind farms demonstrates his rather endearing range of noises to describe the sounds of wind turbines. Despite the attempt at scaring the audience they are not very strong and cannot answer the bigger environmental arguments. After someone from the audience describes the windfarm as a catastrophe, WOWer Anthony points out that the real catastrophe is Climate Change... there's no answer to that and the debate goes our way from then on. FOE produce excellent booklet 'Windpower - your questions answered' which we distribute at the meeting. VECS challenge the Energy Output Section of EIA. District Council organise for another independent consultant to assess my wind data Energy Output calculations... It's look like the application will get delayed again. Local MEP Caroline Lucas (Green) writes in with letter of support. Shrivenham Parish Council vote to object to wind farm. May 2003 WOW organise Oxfordshire and Wiltshire's first renewable energy festival... huge amounts of work to organise it at very short notice. Aimed at local people as a family day out rather than just deep greenies. Festival organised to happen before May planning meeting. Publicity is key and only just managed to get some info into some local monthly newsletters. WOW member, Pete, who grows some veg. at Westmill Farm for his organic box scheme, puts flyers in his boxes and asks other Oxfordshire and Wiltshire organic box people to do the same. Get some local radio coverage and notice in local daily paper. Loads of emailing... again... (will people on the fringe get fed up?) and try to get posters up everywhere. Different people take on responsibility for different aspects - media, site, cafe, WOW stall, Baywind stall, other stalls, etc etc. Invite councillors, flyers sent off to all those who have written in support of the application. At short notice have difficulty in getting many commercial renewable people to turn up... .but just about enough. Book National Energy Foundation's "Green Machine". As the possible number of people coming goes up start to worry about organising insurance, first aid, shelters, contacting police etc. Will it rain? How many people will turn up? Will I get everything done - or even half done - in time?... Balin arrives and starts to put up tripods and yurt... May 18th 2003 Between 800 and 1000 people turn up ! (The VECSers surreptitiously handing out leaflets at the gate quickly run out of leaflets (in post) and disappear!) The wind blows - really blows, all the small wind turbines whizz round generating stacks of kilowatts... the rain keeps off... just... (thank you)... the solar panels boil the water for the fairly traded tea... the wind powered recording/sound system records and makes music... advice is given about insulating your house, converting your car, putting up solar panels, grants available, buying green electricity etc. etc. FOE collect signatures, Rising Tide distribute info on global warming... And everyone seems to have a good time, lots of very positive interest and support... Balloons blow away, and eventually the crowds on the site and then the café thin and its time to back up... Collapse at home with Liz and Balin and Clive and Chris and Rob and... a take away ... exhausted and well pleased... positive campaigning in the face of self interest, wilful ignorance and Climate Change... YES ! Independent
consultant validates wind speed and Energy Output calculations used
in the EIA. If anything we are conservative in our predictions. A car full of WOW members plus Clive in his electric van turn up as do a load of VECSers. The proponents and opponents are allowed to speak for a total of three minutes each! First on are the Parish Councils; Great Coxwell and Watchfield Parish Council each send a spokesperson to voice their grave concerns about the horrors of low frequency and to express their horror at the "vast aerial wall" that will be going up across the Vale - (I guess they have forgotten about the existing planning consent…..) The opposition go next and decide on three people to take up their allotted three minutes. A senior planning person from the National Trust, a planning consultant acting on behalf of my tax-exile neighbour and another neighbour and VECS organiser. Our three-minute slot is taken by Jean, a local resident and long time FOE activist and Oxfordshire FOE organiser. Jean hands in the Oxfordshire FOE petition with over 1000 signatories on it in support of the application, and speaks of the opportunity and widespread support as well as the need for action on Climate Change. Jean is the only woman to have spoken so far and it seems to me is listened to with far less attention by some of the Councillors. The Council then have a bit of general discussion …………. Concerns from a Conservative Councillor about effects on local wildlife (!!!) and from a Lib Dem Councillor (waving a VECS leaflet he's been sent) reminding everybody that planning isn't about popularity stakes. There is some more discussion about what wind farm to visit, who should be allowed to go on the visit, how to structure the meeting etc. etc. The Chair winds it up by saying that he and the leader of the opposition and planning officer will meet to decide if the application will go to an ordinary or special council meeting, which wind farm to visit, what sort of on site marker to be put up, and which expert witnesses to call for the meeting. He also asks his fellow Councillors to take time to read the EIA and other submissions on the files. (I certainly hope they do…. after all the work that has gone into preparing the EIA and subsequent reports it would be a travesty if they came to make a decision ignorant of the established facts…) Next
week WOW and Baywind/Energy4all meet up to decide our strategy in the
lead up to the long awaited meeting. We are very conscious that we don't
know any Councillors between us and that the opposition with Councillors
and ex-Councillors amongst their ranks will no doubt be lobbying hard. Whilst we are lacking in terms of our access to the corridors of power, we know have an overwhelming advantage in terms of widespread support from within the immediate and also wider community. We decide to take the arguments out into the public arena and encourage debate about the wider issues (which is of course what any organisation that has a real concern about Energy should do). Jean on behalf of Oxfordshire FOE issues a press statement which is taken up by quite a few of the local papers. Neither VECS nor anyone else reply which effectively blocks any further debate in the local press. WOW are invited to bring a stall to a two day event organised by the National Science Museum at Wroughton near Swindon. The event is up on another old airfield, just above Swindon, and is called 'Catching the Wind'. Nan and Clive muster up enough support so that no one has to do more than a few hours each over the two days and we take along two exhibitions. Clive brings his interactive solar/wind display of small scale renewable energy with lots of things whizzing around and WOW bring a stall with information about Westmill wind farm with lots of large photomontages (and who to write to to register support for the application), information about Community ownership, Climate Change, how to buy green electricity etc.etc. The event wasn't that well attended, but it is good to try and engage people about the issues…..although many people have no interest… The Vale had commissoned the Institute of Low Frequency Sound and Vibration at Southhampton University to look at the concerns raised, about low frequency sound, their report comes back saying there is no problem. The last semi-legal challenge has evaporated, but there is no movement towards a date for determination as the planning officer is off on paternity leave… can't blame VECS for that! August
2003 Baywind/Energy4all have another attempt to get the public debate going with a press release about community ownership. This is picked up by a few of the papers and also gets Central TV along for shoot and FoxFM radio also run an item and interview…no response from any opponents. Maybe they are losing heart….or maybe they are not keen on any public debate! Scottish Executive publish results from an extensive MORI survey of people living around windfarms in Scotland which shows, yet again, only a very small number of people don't like looking at wind turbines…..just 7% !!! At last we have a date for determination: 23rd October. Not sure where or what is the format…apparently it will be a special meeting and the Vale will be calling independent experts to be present to help inform the Councillors… a mini Hutton Inquiry to help them get through the spin! There is also a date for putting a crane up on site (8th October) and the next day the councillors will be driving up to look at some Bonus wind turbines up near Hull. …watch this space… Please lend your support to this project by sending an e-mail to planning.dc@whitehorsedc.gov.uk For more information about the WOW, please email wow@energy4all.co.uk
. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
