NO WAY TO RUN A PROTEST

Let's take a moment to imagine what might have been.

When the news broke that ScottishPower Renewables (SPR) was examining the Lenchwick area as the potential site for a windfarm, those who were likely to be most affected by the immediate presence of wind turbines had an option.

They could have gathered the facts, assessed the extent of the probable impact, and then endeavoured to negotiate with SPR over how to move forwards in the most mutually beneficial way.

Or they could scamper round the place looking for anti-windfarm dirt on the internet and then foment an atmosphere of deluded anger, misguided hatred and panicked confusion.

Which do you think they did?

At the heart of the VVASP is a handful of individuals - monied and determined. They exploited the uncertainities of other villagers faced with the prospect of a windfarm by spreading rumours and lies about it. As a consequence, the entire debate about the windfarm became lopsided.

For example - noise. It doesn't take much to find out for oneself just how (not) noisy a modern windfarm is. But so many in the Lenches who haven't been bothered to go and find out have willingly relied on the obfuscators and the propagandists of VVASP to tell them how noisy they are (not). So we have a strange situation - dozens of people convinced that the Lenchwick Windfarm will be noisy, when it won't.

Not a good basis on which to build, is it? People have been misled, and have allowed themselves to be misled, and have actively misled themselves. In the Lenches, this has become something of a social requirement: if you want to fit in with the village scene, you have no option but to spout ignorant rubbish about the windfarm.

This is no way to run a protest. Because the basis of the protest is lies.

Yes - a tiny number of households will be quite close, in the great scheme of things, to the turbines. That is an issue which requires looking at - initially to determine if there will be a downside (apart from the fact that one or two people may not be excited at the idea of looking at a windfarm), and, if so, what can be done about it.

That would have been the logical, intelligent, grown-up approach to the problem. To put it another way, study the matter in detail to identify the genuine areas of potential disruption and then seek a solution.

Spreading lies about windfarms, noise, magical mystery noise, pretend noise, infrapenny infrapound noise, dead bats, house prices, 'light flicker' and all the rest of the gobbledegook has no place in this debate. It counts as white noise, a deliberate move to confuse, alarm and terrify the neighbours so that the whole debate is hijacked by the lunatic fringe.

This is where Peter Luff's latest meaningless contribution comes in. Luff is strutting his stuff. He plans a ten minute bill reading in the House, in which he will argue that windfarms shouldn't be built close to people's homes.

It's a point that deserves debate (of the grown-up variety, rather than the screeching, hysterical, woefully misguided and hopelessly badly managed VVASP variety). Not least of all because this situation is going to arise often, repeatedly, up and down the country as the UK struggles to catch up with the rest of the world.

Let's put it this way. We need thousands of new wind turbines in this country. And dreaming up an arbitrary exclusion zone of the '2km OK' type espoused by the nimbies will only prevent that from happening. Back to square one. The rest of the world forges ahead with a low carbon economy, renewables and green energy. We sit on our backsides pulling faces.

Peter Duff demonstrated in today's Evesham Observer where his true interests lie. He linked the need to protect rich peoples' properties from the encroachment of windfarms to the need to limit affordable housing.

Duff likes to boast of his pro-green, pro-renewables credentials (another example of the 'I'm not racist, but' school of green politics). But he also doesn't want a tiny minority of wealthy individuals inconvenienced in the slightest way by the nation's vital move towards green energy. Similarly, he believes in affordable housing, but only 'the right amount and in the right place.'

Yes, you heard that right. Social housing, like renewable energy, can be held hostage in Duff''s whacky world by a couple of people who've made a bit of money.

It is utterly wrong that an area like the Lenches can be turned into a rich person's playground, with traditional rural activities stopped by the incomers (who consider them, a) noisy and b) dirty) and only a privileged few permitted to enjoy the unnatural peace and the almost unlimited pony riding ground. That is not what the countryside is for.

But that is what MP Duff is trying to enforce. Privilege which, having stamped itself on a living community (in the process, undermining and sidelining that community), sets itself the task of determining what can and cannot happen within its domain.

The sad thing is that Duff has been repeatedly advised about the real methods, tactics and motives of the protesters. But he has chosen to ignore the majority of his constituents, and the needs of the nation at large, in order to defend the 'rights' of a tiny number of self-important, arrogant and anti-social property owners and developers.

This is no way to move forwards. Regardless of the fact that Duff's bill has approximately nil percent chance of becoming law, the local MP has given a clear signal as to where his priorities lie. The needs of the many (of society as a whole, future generations, millions in developing countries) are essentially irrelevant. What matters is those handful of Tory voters who live on the hill and are fighting a proposed windfarm.

If only the protesters had had better leadership from the start. Then, perhaps, Duff might have been able to help them.

Instead, he has entered a debate which has been hijacked by self-centred liars and dangerous bullies, and he has done so on their side. He has ignored the very basics of democracy to concentrate on the noisy demands of a privileged few. He has confused the idea of 'community' with those tantrum-throwers who always expect to get their own way, regardless of costs and who suffers.

Couldn't he have thought about this a bit more carefully?

Hmmnn ... maybe. But then, so could the protesters, if they'd wanted to. But they didn't.

*

P.S. - the Transition Towns initiative has been trying to draw Peter Luff's attention to a couple of undeniable facts.

Firstly, that inequality breeds inefficiency and a whole raft of social problems. Secondly, that communities need to become sustainable and to embrace the transition from an exploitative, inefficient consumer society to a low carbon local economy.

Sadly, however, it seems that the well-meaning Transition Towns people were wasting their breath. Luff still believes that inequality is valuable and vital (wealthy people shouldn't have to contribute anything at all to the problems we all face) and that sustainability doesn't really matter, compared with the views from a few wealthy people's bedroom windows.

Still, three cheers for Transition Towns Evesham for trying.