NOTHING LIKE A DANE

Thanks to one of our regular contributors, here's a comment from a young man in Northamptonshire:

'I have 10 wind turbines near me and obviously there was shit loads of opposition but now they're up, everybody loves them. Having another 8 being built soon!'

So - are we learning anything? Lots of people yapping, blathering, putting up placards, lying to their neighbours ... then the turbines start turning and everyone finds out that there's nothing wrong with them. In fact, they're quite inspiring! Do you want a few more? Oh, yes please!!!

That, my friends, is a FACT about windfarms.

Note that FACT. Anyone leafing through today's Evesham Journal will find a small outbreak of FACTs. These are FACTs from the VVASP School of Making Up Misleading Information and Calling it a FACT.

Apparently, someone has identified three FACTs about our proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. Each turbine is the same as a forty storey building and nobody is ever going to want to live near one (that's FACT one). Windfarms create noise pollution (that's another FACT). And windfarms make shadows flicker (that, too, is a FACT).

It would be tiresome to go through the mistakes in this fool's FACT-list and unfair to highlight the extraordinary extent of this person's ignorance. They clearly have let VVASP mess with their heads for far too long. And let's not forget that VVASP's FACTs were rubbished by an independent and impartial regulator.

The fact that this strange local has FACTs rather than 'guesses' just proves that they are a VVASP dupe who can't tell nonsense from fact any more.

Why, though? Why is it that, on the Continent, windfarms are merrily and quietly generating clean energy, much to the satisfaction of the locals, while the English can't stop frothing at the mouth over the whole windfarm/climate change thing?

What makes us so different, say, from the Danes, who love their windfarms?

George Monbiot suggested an answer to this one - the Danes are essentially communal. They get together in co-operatives (which is why we eat Danish Bacon and Lurpak butter), and their windfarms tend to belong to their local communities, who benefit from the energy (and money) generated by the turbines.

In England, no one believes in communes or co-operatives. We're fundamentally selfish and greedy. So a lot of people are prepared to lie about windfarms because they can't see any benefit to themselves from having one nearby.

Certainly, that theory rings true where VVASP are concerned. There are no good reasons (at all) to oppose windfarms, but if you think that you're not going to get anything from a turbine or two nearby, why shouldn't you terrify your neighbours and waste thousands of pounds of public money in trying to stop them?

I guess, just as windfarms in the UK are (if you're a nimby maniac) some kind of conspiracy involving local developers, power companies and Gordon Brown, then the success of windfarms on the Continent is all part of some EU conspiracy.

Doesn't anybody else think that this selfish, right-wing, Daily Mail madness is what's holding Britain back?

Why can't we be more like the Danes?

WHY THIS SORT OF THING MUST STOP

Last week, a second legal challenge was issued in an attempt to stop Bradwell wind farm in Essex going ahead.

The windfarm has already been subject to two public inquiries. A spelling mistake in one ruling led to a legal challenge, issued by the local anti-windpower group, and another public inquiry costing the public purse some £100,000.

All a complete waste of time (and public money) of course.

And even more ridiculous when you consider that one of the leading nimbies, a local councillor who has campaigned against the proposed windfarm on the grounds of noise and 'tranquility', actually runs a sand and gravel extraction business near the site of the proposed windfarm site.

Yes - this campaigner for peace and tranqulity is actually the cause of HGVs driving through the local village. And he wants to stop the windfarm!!

This is insane. Just as insane as VVASP's barking notion that they can hold back the tide (or at least prevent the windfarm from appearing until most of them are dead or in care homes) through the exploitation of legal processes.

Such legal processes might be valid if there genuinely was something to fight against. But the sad, sad fact about these vicious, lying nimbies is that they are determined to fight to the death (er - that is, your death) against something that is GOOD and NECESSARY and HARMLESS, and they will waste as much of YOUR money as they can get away with in the process.

There is absolutely no need for any of this. The nimbies' only gripe against windfarms is that they might spoil the view from the end of their driveways.

Forget all the lunatic nonsense they try to spread about the place concerning windfarms - that they don't work, they're 'inefficient', they make no sense economically, they need nuclear power stations to back them up, they slaughter wildlife and scare horses, they cause headaches, sleeplessness, migraines, falling house prices and the end of civilisation as we know it ... because IT'S ALL UNTRUE!!!

But, just to preserve something that does not belong to them (the view, which many areas with windfarms feel is only enhanced by the turbines), they will tell no end of lies, waste no end of time and money (yours), and generally behave like the sick-minded petty dictators they really are.

Yes, all this must stop. It's crippling the country and holding us back. It's a campaign of lies and misinformation led by evil, selfish people. The sort who will sell the future of everybody else for a few seconds of self-satisfaction.

They must be stopped. It's vital to our national and global interests, the economy and the future of all.

WHY NOT BE HONEST?

When the BBC took VVASP to task over the ASA ruling (sorry about all those abbreviations - basically, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that Vale Villagers Against Scottish Power had been publishing misleading claims about the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm and the BBC wanted to hear what VVASP had to say for themselves) ... sorry, where was I?

Oh, yes - when the BBC challenged VVASP over the nonsense they've been telling people, the spokesperson for Vale Villagers Blah Blah Blah said something like:

"Well, it's easy to dismiss health concerns when it's not your health that's under threat."

Hmmnn. Yes, that's maybe true, if you're the sort of person who doesn't give a stuff about other people.

But it's even easier to dismiss health concerns when THEY'RE ENTIRELY MADE UP.

And here's the problem. The said VVASP spokesperson almost certainly doesn't believe in the health concerns himself because he used to be a scientist and would therefore know that the evidence for these so-called health concerns is wanting.

All the same, he's prepared to try and convince everyone else in the area of these health concerns because he doesn't want to look at a windfarm.

Now, what if he'd told the truth?

What if he'd said, "I don't want a windfarm near me"?

Which is the case. He's said in the past that he wants nothing "industrial" in the area to which he retired, and windfarms - in his book, at least - are "industrial". So he doesn't want one.

It's actually okay not to want a windfarm. No one's obliged to find them as attractive and inspirational as many people do.

Saying that you simply don't want a windfarm nearby is okay - that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it.

But what is WRONG (in huge capital letters) is lying to your neighbours about them and spreading false stories about health concerns and the effects on property prices.

That is unforgiveable. That shows that, simply because "I don't want a windfarm near me" sounds rather lame, the membership of VVASP is quite happy to dream up the craziest possible excuses to justify their unnecessary and misguided opposition to a Good Thing.

Lies like theirs will have to be paid for, one day. Making people believe that they will suffer ill health and financial loss (when there's no proper evidence at all that they will) is evil, pure and simple. The VVASP campaign is not just dishonest - it is evil. And those who have waged this evil campaign of lies and scare stories will one day have to answer for themselves.

It's a shame that they couldn't have been honest in the first place.

IN SUBURBIA

Has anyone seen our esteemed Member of Parliament Peter Luff lately?

You remember Peter - the nookies loved him. They decorated the place with lots more of their nasty little signs whenever he was around. Aeolus thinks that he might have had a bit more to do with their phoney "2km" campaign than he ever let on. And, of course, he stood up in the House of Commons and said, "2 kilometres. Nothing closer. Tory voters. Daily Mail. 2 kilometres. Er - that's it."

But it feels as though Pete's been keeping his head down of late. Could it be that he caught the backlash from the Sensible People for siding with the tin-pot dictators of Nimbia? Perhaps he realised that his campaign was a non-starter inspired by a bunch of hysterics.

Or it could be because most of the nookies are no longer his constituents. Boundary changes mean that Church Lench is now part of Jacqui Smith's Redditch constituency. So, as far as Luff is concerned, they can all bog off - what use are they to him any more?

At the moment, the Tories will say anything to try and get your vote. In power, they'd be faced with reality and any daft "2km" type ideas would quickly be ditched as nonsensical. Jacqui Smith, meanwhile, probably has other things on her mind - like some real problems that need addressing - and it seems unlikely that she'll be bothered by a rather strange bunch jumping up and down in a remote corner of her largely urban seat.

For their part, we can be pretty sure that Big Chief Nookie and his mates really hate the fact that Smith is now their MP and they are considered part of Redditch. They didn't move out to the country just to become part of Redditch for crying out loud!! But, actually, the boundary change makes an awful lot of sense.

If you look closely at the VVASP and its nimby campaign, you'll notice that it is dominated by newcomers to the area.

If you talk to the old guard - the real sons of the soil whose roots go down so deep in the Lenches that they've practically been Grade II listed - you'll find that they're not especially bothered by the prospect of the turbines. Partly because they can't for the life of them see how they could be any harm to anybody. And partly because the newcomers have already made a mess of life in the villages and deserve everything they get.

By moving out into the country with some rather strange preconceptions about what the country is, what it's like and what it does, the nimbies set themselves up for a fall. They thought that the country was picture postcard views and uninterrupted silence. Which it isn't. But they have fought to get their quaint, unrealistic views and abnormal silence, because that's what they foolishly spent their money on - a myth of country life.

What they did, though, was they brought their suburban attitudes out to the country and planted them there. Real country people don't see a problem with a few wind turbines - it's money for the area and they do no harm. Only phoney country people - suburbanites who have transplanted themselves to a country area - have a problem with the turbines because THEY DON'T FIT IN WITH THEIR NARROW-MINDED SUBURBAN IDEAS OF WHAT THE COUNTRY SHOULD LOOK LIKE.

So it's rather appropriate that they should have become part of Redditch, if only for parliamentary purposes. They belong in the suburbs. They certainly shouldn't be screwing up the countryside anymore.

NEWS FROM BLoW

Well, who would have thought it? BLoW (Back Local Windfarms) is a group of people local to the Lenches who, according to their latest press release, were 'horrified by the misleading claims and aggressive attitudes of protesters against the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm.'

So far, so mundane. There are plenty of people who feel nothing but disgust at the way the swivel-eyed nimbies of VVASP have behaved. Fair enough. But BLoW decided to take action. They complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about some of the silly claims being published by VVASP - and they won!

All this is fairly well known in the area. VVASP's literature was branded 'MISLEADING' (just like that, in big capital letters, if you watched 'Midlands Today') by an independent regulator.

VVASP have huffed and puffed and continued to spread their mendacious filth with a misplaced self-righteousness that it truly repellent. Typical nimbies - whether what they say is right or wrong, we are all under orders to believe it in its totality because a bunch of Middle-Class Citizens are saying it.

But while VVASP has been running around the place, headless chicken-like, trying to justify its policy of telling lies, BLoW has gone onto to greater things.

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) was hugely impressed by what BLoW had achieved with the ASA ruling. You see, nimby groups like VVASP exist all over the country and they all tell the same lies. A victory against one of these disgraceful gangs is, in a sense, a victory against all such mindless thuggery and dishonest nimbyism.

BWEA were in the process of establishing a new grassroots campaign, 'Embrace My Planet' (go to www.embracemyplanet.com) - a means of empowering local supporters of renewable energy to campaign for wind farms and against nookies. BLoW had set a wonderful example of what intelligent locals can do to the bullies in their neighbourhood.

So BWEA got in touch with BLoW to ask if they could roll out BLoW's ASA complaint model across the country as a whole. If you like, what BLoW did was so brilliant, the BWEA wants all communities in the UK to be able to do the same: to put the nimbies in their place (finally!) and bring an end to the dishonesty of VVASP-type campaigns by following BLoW's example!

As Adam Bell, National Campaign Co-Ordinator at BWEA, said:

'BLoW's efforts in securing the ASA ruling are a great example of how local people can make a difference in securing clean, green and sustainable energy supplies in the UK. This is a tremendous blow against the disinformation campaign being carried out by the well-funded anti-wind lobby.'

A BLoW spokesperson puts it this way:

'Wind turbines are a part of all our futures, and the sooner we can dispense with all this shallow NIMBYism the better for all of us. While the protesters engage in a dishonest and backward- looking debate, BLoW's efforts have placed us right at the forefront of the national drive towards green energy. That's where we believe the Vale should be - at the cutting edge of new technology, not burying our heads in the sand.'

For a recently-formed campaign group, BLoW hasn't done too badly. A fantastic ASA ruling, a killer blow aimed at VVASP, and now a request to advise on a national anti-nimby campaign.

How cool is that? And how petty-minded and so-last-century does VVASP seem in comparison?

If you want to contact BLoW you can email them at: BLoW@backlocalwindfarms.co.uk.