Letters about the decision to approve the Fullabrook turbines

Letter to Western Morning News and North Devon Gazette

Is this the end of North Devon as we know and love it?


Government targets are in the news. Was pressure to meet Health Service targets partly to blame for what happened in Maidstone Kent?


Here in Devon, Planning Inspectors and Government Ministers have decided to override the wishes of local communities. In order to meet government targets for renewables, they want to impose giant wind power stations on our peaceful rural landscapes. An inspector who allowed the Developers Appeal in Mid Devon said in his report that as far as targets are concerned, all that matters is that the turbines are installed, even if they produce hardly any electricity at all! If the Fullabrook Down turbines are built, their whirring blades will be a lasting monument to government spin.


North Devon Council are apparently thinking of asking for a Judicial Review of the decision to approve the Fullabrook Down Wind Power Station, and I would like to express my support for this.


This is indeed a David and Goliath battle. Goliath is central government and big business, while we – those of us who love our Devon countryside and wild places, who care about wildlife, and small rural communities who need our support – are the Davids.


If the wind power station is built it will totally dominate the landscape of North Devon, from Baggy Point to Codden Hill, from the Taw Estuary and the Tarka Trail, from Braunton Burrows, Fremington Quay and close to Ilfracombe.


Many, many people still have no idea what a change this would be, and if this power station is built, they will learn the truth about it when it is too late to do anything to stop it. True Green policies are about preserving and cherishing our environment, not destroying it.

Christine Lovelock

Western Morning News

NOWHERE IS SAFE FROM TURBINES
Date : 30.10.07

The only thing to come from the efforts of the people of North Devon who opposed the Fullabrook Down wind farm development is a clearer message to us of what the rest of the South West is up against in trying to preserve our landscape.We can now all see that a government inspector has his remit and could just as well have written his judgment out as a standard form, ready to pass out to all of us, and that this development has nothing to do with environmental issues,

In fact a similar thing has happened in Essex, where ten turbines are to be built next to a 7th century Saxon chapel and the government inspector said its essential character would be unspoilt.

Along with this we have the likes of Regen South West - a supposed independent renewable energy office which, although we pay its wages, is no more than an advertising agency for the wind power industry.

In fact several of its  board either own or are executives of such companies.

Not only that, but it also produces literature for guidance to our councillors and planners with data from the British Wind Energy Association.

For the chief executive of this office to say that Devon would come to see the development as a feather in its cap is a patronising slap in the face for all those who opposed it.

What I cannot understand is why Devon's Green Party was so in favour of this development when the massive impact on the countryside from a flawed technology was so obvious to everyone else.

Its spokesman said it was a David and Goliath result.

But again this is a piece of spin, as this Devon Green Party had the Government on its side from the beginning as well as, I suspect, the huge resources of the Green Party.

You would think that members of this group are not stupid people and would have studied wind energy and seen how poorly it performs.

If they did, then they could not fail to see it for what it is - and that is a nice big earner for the wind power companies and, in the words of Christopher Booker of the Sunday Telegraph, "the great wind scam".

So  then to support it points to a political agenda rather than an environmental one.

It is a shame, but we can predict now that the 66-megawatt power station will only produce a yearly average of no better than 18Mw and disrupt the grid with its intermittence and ruin the rural aspect of this part of Devon.

Once when City boys received their annual bonuses and were looking for something to spend it on they came to the Westcountry, where, to them, land and property is cheap.

But now they should be aware - as we are - that nowhere is safe from wind farm developments.

Corey Wright

Camelford