SOME GOOD NEWS

My sources tell me that, at their latest rallies - sorry, 'Question and Answer Sessions' - the opponents of the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm have been advised that they should only object to the proposals on the grounds of noise.

This strikes me as an advance on some recent advice they were given (by the local MP, I believe) that objections should be based solely on local, and not national issues.

Instantly, most of the loonier claims of the protesters are disqualified from the debate (oh, by the way, apparently they're not protesters; oh no, they BELIEVE in renewable energy, just, er, like, not around here). So, the stories that wind turbines 'don't work' because they're 'inefficient', or that they only catch fire or topple over, or that they destroy the local environment (what???), or halve your property values overnight, or send out deadly untraceable soundwaves which creep into your bedroom at night and send you crazy ... all that crap doesn't count. These people who have a problem with the thought of wind turbines somewhere in their neighbourhood can only object to them because they're noisy.

Which is terrific, because anyone who's actually stood close to a wind farm knows that modern turbines are practically silent.

The 'noisy turbines' argument was one of the first to catch on around here. The other nonsense grew out of Chinese whispers and the deliberate peddling of misinformation by the frauds of he VVASP. But noise was an issue from the outset. Wind turbines are great noisy whooshing whoomping things, aren't they? Stands to reason, doesn't it?

Well, no, actually. Way back, when only the first generation of turbines were being erected in wild and windy places, the Open University produced figures which indicated that wind turbines are pretty quiet. There have been developments in the technology since then.

A small group of us went to visit a working windfarm recently. There was a twenty mile an hour wind blowing, so that the turbines were working at maximum efficiency. There were ten of these things in a large field. Even standing right underneath them, you could hold a conversation at normal volume; a few metres away, you couldn't hear them.

(This was not my first experience of visiting a windfarm, so I am satisfied that the noise they emit is practically minimal. Remarkably, however, a delegation of local protesters - no, not protesters, erm, fools - managed to find a windfarm somewhere or other which makes so much noise it drives people out of their minds. As far as I can tell, this 'fact-finding' mission didn't really go anywhere near the turbines, they just went to meet someone who had a grudge against them. So, more misinformation gets spread about the place: windfarms are noisy, even though they're not.)

The Environmental Impact Assessment scoping document is available to download. The issue of noise is just one of many which have to be examined, analysed, measured by independent consultants before the planning application for these turbines is submitted - indeed, before any final decisions are made about the siting of the turbines.

So, the turbines emit pretty well no noise whatsoever, and a few metres away they can't really be heard. The planning application will have examined the potential noise issue in detail and produced actual scientific figures - you know, science, that thing that the protesters don't believe in - which will help the local authority planning committee decide whether or not the windfarm will be noisy or not.

The protesters will be objecting to the proposals on grounds that don't really exist. Okay, pretty well all of their objections are nonsense anyway, but noise ... hah, it's simply not a real problem.

Which is terrific news, because if the only objections which will be considered are those based on the problem of noise, and the turbines demonstrably aren't noisy, where will that leave the VVASP?

With their heads still stick up their communal arse, probably.