VVASP NEWS

The latest VVASP newsletter (October 2009) is out.

And they have the temerity to accuse ScottishPower Renewables of practising 'deception'!

"We have the right to expect a large company like SPR to show honesty and integrity in dealings with the public but these aspects were in short supply", claimed the newsletter.

This 'party line' seems to have been agreed before SPR and its consultants held the three public information sessions in Norton & Lenchwick, Harvington and Church Lench last month. There was an assumption - a prejudice, if you will - that SPR would inevitably be lying.

In fact, there are numerous reasons why ScottishPower Renewables are unlikely to tell lies during this process. The most obvious being that it would seriously damage their cause, and the cause of other renewable energy companies seeking to solve our energy problems before they become insurmountable. There is, quite simply, too much at stake. Lying to the public would be a very foolish, and unnecessary, thing for SPR to do.

A while back, this blog asked if anyone could site a single lie told, thus far, by SPR. Still haven't found one, but do keep looking.

VVASP meanwhile can, and do, spout any old rubbish they want to with impunity.

Even before the public information sessions were held, people in Bishampton (including supporters of the windfarm) were being urged to attend the sessions because 'we have to fight this thing.' Not - you may note - to find out what's actually at stake.

This was evidently VVASP's tactic. ScottishPower Renewables, along with consultants from Dulas and an environmental campaigner, were making it possible for locals to peruse the plans and ask questions. This was the first time such an opportunity would exist since VVASP was created to mislead and misinform the locals. A concerted effort was made to limit the impact of these information sessions. While experts were in the halls answering questions (or being told, on no grounds whatsoever, that they were 'lying'), the nimbies were doing their utmost to present their own alternative reality to the villagers.

One criticism made was that the information sessions showed just two photographs with a computer generated windfarm visible - one from the Handgate crossroads and one from Spitten Farm. Where was the photo taken from the Lenches Club, for instance (which, by the way, would have shown that the view of the Malverns from the club's windows would not be obscured in any way by the turbines)?

According to the VVASP newsletter, the two photographs were "taken from viewpoints deliberately chosen to minimise the dominance of the turbines". That is, one was taken from the east and another from the north-west. For anyone who wanted to know what the windfarm would look like from other angles, there was a consultant there to conjure up the relevant diagram on a laptop.

What VVASP were so annoyed about was the simple fact that the windfarm didn't look quite so terrifying when it was in situ, as it were. VVASP had flown a blimp 125-metres up and 'most people' were 'amazed at how high the turbines would be'. Why? What did they think 125-metres would look like? Of course, when you're standing directly beneath it, a blimp flying 125 metres up in the air seems rather high up. But when you're at the distance you'd normally be at - i.e., on two of the main roads into Church Lench, it doesn't seem quite so big.

So - question: how many residents of the Lenches are going to spend significant amounts of time standing directly under the turbines, looking up at them?

Not many.

No, what VVASP were fuming about was that the images of the windfarm rather contradicted their entirely misrepresentative image of what the turbines will look like (a blimp, 125-metres up, which you stand underneath and express surprise at how high it is). SPR had taken plenty of steps to show anyone present what the windfarm would look like from either side and from any point requested. But this wasn't what VVASP wanted people to see. So, as the VVASP say of SPR, "they should be ashamed of themselves."

Ashamed of themselves for making information available. Information that showed how paltry VVASP's 'information' is.

Maybe flying the blimp at 80-metres - the actual height of the hub at the top of the turbine mast - would have been more representative.

Two things made an impression at the public information sessions hosted by SPR in October. One was the sheer level of hostility and unreasonable behaviour in Church Lench (VVASP's 'peaceful protest'). The other was the surprising degree of support for the windfarm, especially in Harvington and Norton & Lenchwick.

And although this blog has no connection whatsoever with Scottish Power or any other developers or operators of windfarms, Wind of Change is happy to point out that SPR have not yet been caught out telling lies. Whereas VVASP have consistently made claims about the windfarm which are demonstrably untrue.

Who, then, has really shown a short supply of 'honesty and integrity' in dealing with the public?

A little further into the VVASP newsletter comes the news that the Lenchwick Windfarm could "bring about the end of cricket in the Lenches." "Turbines Four and Five will be behind the bowler's arm at the south end of the cricket ground" (actually, they won't - turbines 4 and 5 are at the other end of the development).

Does this count as a genuine threat? The Lenches sports ground has been there for all of - what? five years? Many villagers were opposed to it, and there is unhappiness at the prospect of the sports club extending its ground, pulling up hedges (without planning permission) and adding to the noise pollution experienced by locals, as well as light pollution in a quiet country village during the evenings.

Quite why a five-turbine windfarm some distance from the cricket pitch should "bring about the end of cricket in the Lenches" isn't clear. Are cricketers unusually sensitive creatures? And, even if it was true (which anyone with a functioning brain knows it isn't), how does the "end of cricket in the Lenches" stack up against electricity black-outs and climate change?

Let's face it - the energy news isn't good. The government's chief adviser has warned that there will be electrcity black-outs by 2016 if we don't get a grip. Ofgen has now announced that energy bills could rise by 60% over the same period as the loss of nuclear and coal-fired power stations leads to an increasingly risky dependence on imported gas.

The crisis is coming. But we can take steps to avert it. And if that means the end of cricket at the Lenches sports ground, not everyone in the area will be sorry.

Then again, in the real world cricket will continue. The windfarm will look less threatening than VVASP want you to think it is. And they'll still accuse SPR of 'deception' when all the evidence points in the other direction.

They should be ashamed of themselves.