WHAT IS A NIMBY?

In the 1950s, the Corporation of Liverpool decided that it needed more water. This was not for the citizens of Liverpool, who had plenty of water. The Corporation believed that it needed more water for its proposed programme of industrial expansion.

Bypassing local democracy, the Corporation of Liverpool acquired an Act of Parliament allowing it to flood a Welsh valley. Naturally, there was massive opposition. Nothing did more to promote the growth of Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party. There were even outbreaks of what we would now call terrorism.

Still, in 1965, families living in Capel Celyn were evicted. Bodies were exhumed from the cemetery, which was then concreted over. Twelve houses and farms were drowned, along with the post office, the school and the chapel.

Even today, Liverpool does not use all the water stored in the Tryweryn Reservoir created by the flooding of Capel Celyn.

The Welsh-speaking people of Capel Celyn could not have been described as 'NIMBYs'. Partly because the word (or acronym) didn't exist. It was invented in the 1980s - the 'me' decade. Even so, those families who had lived in Capel Celyn all their lives were not campaigning against the reservoir on the grounds of 'Not In My Back Yard'. They were campaigning for their homes, their village, their family property to be saved.

The threat which faced the people of Capel Celyn was a very real one.

NIMBY groups form to confront a threat that isn't real.

Let's take a fairly recent, and utterly disgraceful, nimby campaign.

When, in 2007, the Ministry of Defence opened a new 30-bed annexe at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre in Surrey, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA) decided to convert a local house into a temporary home-from-home for families visiting seriously wounded service personnel. The place they chose was in Gray's Lane, Ashtead.

83 letters of objection were lodged by local residents. The objectors cited 'increased traffic noise', 'additional pollution' and the slim chance that the area would become a 'soft target' for 'these awful terrorists'.

One local resident kept demanding, 'would you be happy with the relatives of a bunch of soldiers on your lawn?'

It goes without saying that most of the Ashtead residents were only too happy to see British service personnel going overseas to protect British interests. But when some came back with hideous wounds and injuries, those same local residents were not prepared to allow the families of the wounded to stay nearby.

Unlike the people of the lost village of Capel Celyn, the Ashtead residents were categorically not fighting to protect their homes. Rather, they seem to have had a mental image of their well-heeled area which did not include any kind of temporary home for the families of wounded soldiers. They were not opposing a direct threat - for all that laughable nonsense about becoming a terrorist target. They were fighting an imaginary one.

It's easy to spot a NIMBY campaign. The language tends to be hysterical (like, the turbines of Lenchwick Windfarm will "kill the Vale countryside" - a monstrous suggestion if ever there was one). The 'facts' turn out to be merely opinions. Crazy rumours spread like wildfire.

The threat confronted by nimbies is a perceived threat - it is not a real threat. Although dramatic claims are made about the impact on house prices, the evidence fails to support the claims. Imaginary threats (such as 'noise') are blown out of all proportion. A deliberate campaign of misrepresentation, often supported by strong-arm tactics, is engineered to scare or force other residents into supporting the nimby cause.

In Capel Celyn, a community existed and struggled, unsuccessfully, to defend itself. In stark contrast, nimby campaigns tend to be illustrative of a community breakdown. A sense of community is manufactured by creating an illusory threat against which locals are obliged to combine. But a real community would not object to a home for families visiting badly wounded soldiers. The very existence of that shameful campaign was proof that all community spirit in the area had vanished.

The perceived threats conjured up by those opposed to a windfarm in their local area are illusory threats. This blog came into existence largely as a result of the barrage of propaganda being unleashed by VVASP. The protesters claimed to be 'informing' the community. In reality, they have been misinforming, misleading and terrifying their nieghbours with unfounded scare stories. Had they really been interested in 'informing' the community, there would have been a bit of balance, not to mention reliable science, in the information they provide.

No one is obliged to like the idea of a windfarm nearby. But spreading unsubstantiated rumours about windfarms with the sole purpose of whipping up opposition to the proposals is deeply immoral. VVASP have planted a psychological timebomb. There will, unfortunately, be those who believe the misquoted reports, the misrepresented studies, the misleading myths. When Lenchwick Windfarm becomes operational, these poor people will expect problems. They will blame anything and everything on the windfarm.

The reality is that the windfarm poses a negligible threat. It is all in the mind. Unlike Capel Celyn, the village, the community, does not face the genuine threat of extermination.

By pretending that it does, and by mounting vociferous opposition to what is essentially a much-needed and beneficial development, VVASP have proved that they are NIMBYs, products of the 'me' generation, with little or no concern for anything but themselves.