BURTON WOLD SUCCESS!!!

Many moons ago, we reported on a visit to the Burton Wold Windfarm, a mere kilometre away from the village of Burton Latimer in Northamptonshire.

The journey over there was fraught. This was because most of those going had had their heads filled with arrant nonsense by the self-serving nimby liars of VVASP. They were therefore tetchy and apprehensive. But that changed as soon as they saw the windfarm.

Ten turbines, each 100 metres tall. The visitors wandered around the site (where crops were still being farmed, because wind turbines don't take up much land) and stood holding conversations - at normal volume - directly underneath the blades. It was a blustery day, and under the blades is the "noisiest" spot, but nobody had to raise their voices. Two hundred metres away, the turbines weren't really audible at all. A red kite put on an aerobatic display, flitting back and forth between the rotating blades. People were smiling. The homeward journey was friendly. All bogus concerns had been dispelled by the sheer majesty of an actual windfarm in operation. Everyone chatted and shared sweets.

That's the reality of windfarms. It's so easy to get the nimby lies out of your head. You just have to make an modest effort and find out for yourself.

Unless you're a district councillor. Members of Wychavon District Council's planning committee also visited Burton Wold, and apparently walked around with their eyes shut. At the special planning meeting for the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm, one council member argued that because the turbines at Burton Wold (ten of them) were 100 metres high, and the ones proposed for Lenchwick (five of them) were a little taller, then the two examples were utterly unlike each other. A case of brazen sophistry, if ever there was one.

Well, yesterday witnessed extraordinary scenes at Kettering Borough Council.

First, some background. Plans were already approved in 2007 to extend the Burton Wold windfarm by building seven more turbines to the north of the site. There had been no objections from the locals.

Yesterday, another five turbines, planned for the south of the Burton Wold site, gained unanimous approval from the Kettering borough councillors. There were no protests, no objections. One after another, councillors spoke in praise of the windfarm. The chair concluded the meeting with the remark: "this Council is leading the way, we are becoming the hub for renewables in the East Midlands".

A single turbine was also approved at the meeting for installation elsewhere in the district. The councillors - noting the provisions of the government's new planning guidelines and their presumption in favour of sustainable developments - agreed that all renewable energy helps the environment, no matter how small the contribution.

So, where did it all go right? After all, Burton Wold now has unanimous and enthusiastic permission to become a 22-turbine windfarm - the same number as turbines as will eventually be installed at Fullabrook in North Devon, where a small number of people are already complaining about "noise" which others cannot hear (see previous post).

The answer is simple. Burton Wold windfarm already exists. The locals know that the windfarm isn't noisy, nor is it unsightly. They can see it, but they weren't hoodwinked and brainwashed by nimby terrorists into believing that it would harm them. They know that the windfarm doesn't make you ill or massacre everything in its path. And far from hammering house values, estate agents marketing properties in neighbouring Burton Latimer routinely advertise proximity to the windfarm as a Unique Selling Point.

What is more, farmworkers actually live in cottages in the middle of the windfarm! Any complaints? Nope.

In other words, the disgusting nimby nutters could get nowhere in Kettering, with their foul and misleading bugaboo nonsense about wind power. They would have been laughed off the street.

Nimbies prey on the ignorant, the vulnerable and the easily-alarmed. They have achieved some success in North Devon where, though they couldn't stop the windfarm, they could at least trick locals into thinking that they can hear noises. But they wouldn't get away with that sort of unscrupulous and irresponsible behaviour near Burton Wold, because there, people know the convenient truth.

You won't hear much about the success of Burton Wold from your neighbourhood nimbies. They'll only want to tell you about the people they betrayed and damaged in Devon. Or about the piece written by two confirmed anti-windfarm campaigners which was published in the British Medical Journal. The nimbies will tell you that this "proves" a connection between windfarms and health issues (a connection which is only ever made in places where they depraved nimbies have already managed to convince people that they will get ill), although another piece, also published in the British Medical Journal, shows how biased and unscientific the nimby-friendly piece actually is (see here: http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1527/rr/572780).

Your local nasty nimbies nutters also won't tell you that their claims that windfarms will always need "baseload" back-up from conventional sources aren't true either:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/energy-futurist/why-baseload-power-is-doomed/445?tag=nl.e660

No, they'll just carry on spouting their incessant torrent of lies. But at least the good people of Kettering know that when a nimby opens his or her mouth, nothing but lies come spewing out of it. Otherwise, they might have objected to two - not one, but two - TWO - extensions to the Burton Wold windfarm site. But they didn't.

Because they know from experience that windfarms are fab. And luckily for them, no demented nimby hooligan got in there first with their atrocious and absurd stories about windfarms and health, house prices, noise, wildlife, emissions, baseload, subsidies, yadda yadda yadda ............