ETSU-R-97

One of the biggest issues likely to surround the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm is the question of noise.

In fact, it's very simple. Everyone who's ever been to a reasonably modern windfarm will know from experience that they're not noisy. More to the point, they're surprisingly quiet. They're the 'silent workhorses' that a local councillor from Ardrossan, Argyll, spoke about - and they should know, because their windfarm is less than a kilometre from the nearest dwellings.

A letter recently published in the Evesham Observer confirmed this. The writer had camped for several nights, along with many others, in a field with more than twenty wind turbines and wasn't disturbed at all by them. What's more, numerous turbines have sprung up around their holiday home in Brittany (the French are more sensible than us and just install the things, rather than giving nimby rats a chance to lie their heads off to all and sundry about them; the locals even hold a party whenever a French windfarm is opened!). Again, no experience of excessive noise or 'amplitude modulation'.

Truth be told, those of us in the Lenches region who have spent time near windfarms, and have even stood beneath the blades, know for a fact that VVASP have been lying like crazy about the noise they make. And, because we know, we've been banned from talking about it.

VVASP have, according to their Glorious Leader, visited 'many'. For some strange reason, the windfarms they have visited decided to be noisy when they were there. They're not noisy when anyone else visits them. Funny, that.

The cretins, frauds and liars of VVASP have come back from the beyond with weird stories to tell about windfarms. And even weirder stories to tell about the government guidelines on windfarm noise assessment and rating.

These guidelines were established by a working panel of experts in 1996 - their findings were published in a report known as ETSU-R-97.

A bunch of crazies who just don't like windfarms (or don't like the idea of having one a bit of a distance away from them) have been trying to claim that ETSU-R-97 is 'outdated'. Because it was drafted at a time when wind turbines were generally much smaller than they tend to be today, it is presumed that they must be out-of-date or, as an officer at Wychavon District Council put it, 'unfit for purpose'.

The first lie the nookies have been telling about ETSU-R-97 is that it was created by the wind power industry. WRONG. The panel of experts involved included noise experts, planning officers, civil servants, a solicitor ... and four representatives from renewable concerns. The overwhelming majority of the panel had nothing directly to do with the wind power industry.

ETSU-R-97 established the acceptable level of noise output, above the mean background level of noise (the sort of noise that is heard everywhere, like wind in the leaves, birds twittering, traffic in the distance, and so on). Now, here's where the arguments against ETSU-R-97 get really illogical.

The nimbies are trying to claim that, because modern turbines are somewhat bigger than the ones around when ETSU-R-97 was drafted, they must be noisier.

That, of course, goes against all the evidence, all personal experience and eye-witness testimony, and, of course, common sense. There have been continual adjustments and improvements to the design and manufacture of wind turbines in that time.

Put simply - wind turbines are QUIETER today than they were fourteen years ago.

So what's the problem with ETSU-R-97, then? Because, if turbines were indeed noisier today (they're not, but IF they were) then ETSU-R-97 would be more relevant than ever. Because ETSU-R-97 recommends an upper limit of 5dB above background noise levels for a windfarm, then noiser turbines would fail to meet the requirements of ETSU-R-97.

See? ETSU-R-97 is, in theory at least, the nimby's friend. If the claim that modern turbines are noisier than their earlier counterparts had any truth in it, ETSU-R-97 would make it a great deal more difficult for developers like ScottishPower Renewables to build windfarms.

Of course, the dumb statements by protest groups like VVASP have nothing whatever to do with whether or not ETSU-R-97 is 'unfit for purpose'. It's just another of their desperate attempts to fight the windfarm on any spurious grounds going.

If they can pretend that ETSU-R-97 is out-of-date, they reckon they can get the windfarm stopped because nobody knows what the guidelines on noise should be.

But if we look closely at their arguments, we find that they're totally self-contradictory and (as usual) make no sense whatsoever.

Here are the FACTS (as VVASP like to spell the word):

Modern wind turbines are even quieter than turbines were in the mid-90s.

The government has repeatedly confirmed that ETSU-R-97 remains in place as the official government guidelines on windfarm noise assessment.

ETSU-R-97 works just fine - if today's turbines genuinely were noisier, they would be more likely to fail the ETSU-R-97 test.

All anti-windfarm nimbies are liars, frauds and utterly stupid.

STALINISM IN THE LENCHES

Now and then, reviewing VVASP's literature, a chill runs down the spine.

Take the meeting of the bogus Windfarm Working Party in July 2009, at which it was noted:

Following a request for Harvington Parish Council to publish a letter from a parishioner in the Parish Council Newsletter, which was declined, it was agreed [by the Windfarm Working Party] that Parish Councils should not be involved with releasing information/educating the community on the subject of wind farms, this should be left to VVASP.

Apart from the obvious hint of censorship here, certain questions arise. Presumably, the Harvington parishioner was hoping to get a letter supportive of wind farms into their Parish Council Newslettter (as recent events have shown, there are people in Harvington who know a great deal about windfarms from personal experience, and don't have a bad word to say about them). Clearly, it would not have suited the purposes of the raging nimbies in Harvington, Church Lench and elsewhere to allow free speech, so the request for the letter to be published was declined.

Worse, though, is the implication that the supposedly impartial Windfarm Working Party actually thought that VVASP was up to the job of "educating the community". Incredible, isn't it?

Worse still, VVASP considered itself entitled to "educate" District Councillors on the subject of wind farms and their planning applications. In notes supplied after a VVASP meeting held in April 2009, we read the following:

District Councillors education ... it was decided to send regular e-mail updates to the district councillors to provide education [sick; sorry, I meant sic]. Many had replied with thanks and asked for continued input. The first of these was appeal results at Shipdam [actually, Shipdham in Norfolk].

Now, we're not 100% sure, but we thought that District Councillors - especially those serving on the Development Control Committee, who were the main intended recipients of VVASP's "education" - are competent individuals with a wealth of experience in life, council and planning matters behind them.

How many of them needed VVASP's "education" to help them understand what a windfarm is?

Of course, we can guarantee that the "education" provided by VVASP to the District Councillors was as one-sided and misrepresentative as everything else they've ever said. They must have really done their nut when it quickly became clear that Ecotricity were not giving up in their plans to install two turbines - yes: just two! - at Shipdham and that they have since received permission to erect anemometer (wind-measuring) masts at the site.

The problem with all this "education" that VVASP have been pumping out, with the unqualified approval of their friends and partners in the Windfarm Working Party, is that it is supplied by people who are themselves dunces when it comes to wind power.

It's the sort of education that Josef Stalin approved of - i.e., not education at all. It's a kind of "re-education", a deliberate attempt at brainwashing the planning committee and the general public. It was a blatant arm-twisting exercise.

Typical, though, of the arrogance of the protesters of VVASP that they should assume that they had both the right and the wherewithal to "provide education" to Wychavon's District Councillors over a matter in which they have proven their tendency to tell lies, to mislead and to bully those who don't agree with them.

And typical, too, of the ludicrous Windfarm Working Party to encourage them to carry on doing it.

So would all those of you who have been to a windfarm and know that they're not noisy please line up and prepare yourselves to be "educated", VVASP-style.

COUNCIL CONFUSION

This is for our friends at BLoW, as much as anyone.

Wychavon District Council Wind Energy Informative Note 2010:

6.18 Paragraph 22 of PPS22 states that ETSU-R-97 (The Assessment and Rating of Noise from Wind Farms) should be used to assess and rate noise from wind energy development ...

Email from Wychavon District Council Environmental Planning Manager, 30 December 2009:

There is general concern among the acoustic industry that ETSU-R-97 as the only supported government guidance on the subject is not fit for purpose ... [On] balance our recommendation would be to appoint Mike Stigwood as he is particularly well versed in wind farm applications and critique of ETSU-R-97 ...

Charles Hendry, Minister for Energy, written answer to House of Commons, 27 July 2010:

There is no reason to believe that the protection from noise provided for by ETSU-R-97 guidance does not remain acceptable, and we have no plans to change this ...

Charles Hendry, Minister for Energy, written answer to House of Commons, 14 September 2010:

Planning inspectors are, however, aware that ETSU-R-97 remains the applicable guidance for assessing and rating noise from wind energy developments.

(He then went on to say that 'There are currently no plans to introduce a [two-kilometre] proximity rule.')

So ... a decision taken by Wychavon at the very end of 2009 was directly at odds with government policy and the Council's own observations about the required use of ETSU-R-97.

We at Wind of Change hope that somebody, sometime soon, will offer an explanation for this extraordinary decision on the part of the District Council.

THE SMOKING GUN

Late last year, the devious and dishonest fanatics of VVASP sent calendars of the Lenches to District Councillors. These calendars were entitled 'Lovely Lenches' or 'Magical Midsomer' or whatever their fevered brains had come up with. Ten-to-one the images of the Luscious Lenches did not all consist of an empty field - so presumably most of the photos they showed would look exactly the same after the windfarm is erected.

The Wychavon councillors did the right thing. They entered these unsolicited 'gifts' in the register of Members' Interests and then binned them.

Not content with trying to bribe the jury, it now appears that Dr No's nimby mafia might have been trying to nobble those responsible for ensuring that the Lenchwick Windfarm planning application gets a fair trial.

Step forward those friendly freedom-fighters of BLoW. After many months spent trying to wring some information out of the bogus Windfarm Working Party concerning what the pompous, rabid, self-important nookies of Lench have been doing with our money, the good folk at BLoW have released an interim report. And it does not make for comfortable reading.

First of all, it seems pretty clear and incontrovertible that the Windfarm Working Party was set up by an undeniably biased Parish Council with the sole purpose of using the local parish councils (and, in particular, their money) to fight the proposed windfarm. As the report makes abundantly clear, the deranged nookies had no democratic mandate to do this, and it would appear that (as usual) they lied till they were blue in the face in order to get their hands on tax-payers' money. And then - gosh, shock horror!! - they didn't use that money in the way they had said they were going to!!

Now, all that is bad enough. Also bad is the fact that so many people in this part of the world seem to think that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 can be safely ignored, or that it doesn't apply to them, or that they are in someway above having to account to the public for their misuse of public money.

But at the end of the BLoW report comes a section added at a late stage in the process. And this is where things get interesting.

The Windfarm Working Party had planned to co-fund, along with their buddies in VVASP, a Noise Measurement Survey. The only payment ever made by the WWP towards this Noise Measurement Survey was in October 2009. Then, in December 2009, an officer at Wychavon District Council decided to hire an external noise consultant purely on the basis that he doesn't approve of windfarms and he has repeatedly criticised the government's planning guidelines on windfarms and noise.

With that particular expert lined up, the report observes, there was simply no need for VVASP and its Windfarm Working Party to fund a Noise Measurement Survey. They could sit back and relax, secure in the knowledge that a report would come into Wychavon which criticised the Environmental Impact Statement on all counts. The WWP was free to blow all its (i.e. your) money on paying a solicitor to object, and object, and object again, and again, to the windfarm plans.

The report ends on a cliffhanger. The results of a Freedom of Information request to Wychavon District Council are awaited with anticipation. And then, who knows, the full story might come out, and the following questions might be answered:

1) Why did Wychavon choose to retain a noise expert who is somewhat notorious in the industry for making money out of anti-windfarm groups and opposing every aspect of an Environmental Impact Statement as if by rote?

2) Why, after that decision was taken at Wychavon, did the Windfarm Working Party decide not to bother organising a Noise Measurement Survey of its own?

3) Which council officers and councillors met with the Windfarm Working Party during the period for which the WWP is refusing to make public the notes of its meetings?

4) When was Mike Stigwood's name first mentioned in connection with the Lenchwick Windfarm?

5) Why has Wychavon made no effort to date to ensure that Parish Councils in the area are being run properly and are not being hijacked by nimbies so that they can spend your money on their crazy campaign?

So we wait. With baited breath.

But thanks heavens for BLoW - they might just be the only thing standing between us and a complete breakdown of local democracy.

THE NEWS JUST GETS BETTER!

On the day that the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the most drastic cuts in government spending since the Second World War, what did we hear?

The government has committed £200 million of NEW money to 'the development of low carbon technologies including offshore wind technology and manufacturing at port sites'.

This was more than campaigners had dared to hope for.

So, at a time when so many public services are being slashed, the coalition government - mainly comprising those Tories whom the nimbies of VVASP were relying on to fight their deluded corner - has revealed its wholehearted commitment to green energy and green jobs.

This comes on top of the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne's announcement that there would be no public money available for building new nuclear power stations. Realistically, that's a huge nail in the nuclear coffin. Nuclear is the most expensive form of electicity generation going, and in these difficult times there aren't many companies prepared to invest the colossal sums involved in new-build nuclear plants.

The nuclear industry has never been able to survive without massive government subsidies. Clearly, the government is - for the meantime, at least - sticking to its forecasts of enormous increases in wind power and renewables and a commensurate decline in nuclear over the next few years.

For many in Britain, today was a very bad day. There will be casualties of the government's sweeping cuts.

But one of the few, the very, very few industries to be promised an impressive increase in public spending is the renewables industry.

Time to face reality - nimbyism, especially where renewables projects and wind power are concerned, is outdated. A thing of the past. Even their supposed friends in government have left them behind.

VVASP is a twentieth century mindset barely even treading water in the 21st century. Their time is gone. They are increasingly irrelevant and out-of-touch.

Apart from which, they've been wrong from the very start. Wrongheaded - and now, wrongfooted.

So, every cloud, eh?

TORIES SUPPORT WIND POWER

Following on from our last blog, which indicated that the UK government is fully expecting to see a massive increase in renewables over the next nine years, news has come in which should crush the hopes of the selfish nimbies.

Charles Hendry, Minister for Energy in the coalition government, has defended onshore wind power in a Commons debate.

The same Charles Hendry reaffirmed in July of this year that the government's guidelines on noise - ETSU-R-97 - remained firmly in place. These guidelines have been repeatedly questioned by desperate nimbies and even, it would seem, by officers at Wychavon District Council (they don't really have the right to question government guidelines), but all the same, the government is sticking to them.

Now, Hendry has announced that onshore wind power remains a key factor in the move towards a low carbon economy. Another Tory MP had made the strange remark that onshore windfarms divert resources away from 'other renewables that do work and that people like'. Yes - a very strange remark, given that onshore windfarms demonstrably do work and, as far as all polls have shown, people generally like them. As usual, an MP was pursuing a nimby argument that certain people faced with the prospect of a windfarm nearby suddenly decide that they don't like them, as well as trying to pretend that they don't work.

But Charles Hendry came up with a very interesting answer to this:

Sizewell B, one of our more recent nuclear power stations, has been out of operation for seven months. In that time, it did not produce a single unit of electricity, but our wind system produced 1.8 TWh of electricity, the equivalent of the annual consumption of 400,000 homes.

Hendry acknowledged that wind power can fluctuate, but given that the National Grid has published several reports which indicate that this is not a problem, and a good 40% of our electricity could be provided by variable sources, like wind power, before we begin to encounter any real problems, he quite rightly brushed the issue aside. 'There are only a few hours when [turbines] are not generating', Hendry announced. 'Recent figures show that they have been producing 10% [of our total energy consumption].'

So, it's all looking pretty grim for the narrow-minded and self-centred nookies of Lench. The government is backing wind power - including onshore wind power - all the way. And for a very good reason.

We need it. It does the job. And it would be criminal if we gave up on this sensible and elegant solution to our problems, just because a few dishonest nimbies kick up a totally unreasonable fuss about something in a field which they don't own anyway.

THE WAY AHEAD

It's not a very entertaining document, but the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)'s Energy and Emissions Projections (updated June 2010) does have some very interesting information in it.

Basically, renewables are expected to burgeon enormously by the end of the decade.

The report assumes - as it should - that the government's own target of 30% of electricity generated by renewables will be met by 2020. As the document's graphs show, this will entail a massive amount of new build for renewables (roughly, from just a few gigawatts to about 35 gigawatts by 2020). Come the end of this decade, renewables are predicted to account for some 150 Terrawatt/hours - between a third and a half of the total produced - with only gas coming anywhere near a comparable amount. Nuclear - both old and new - is expected to provide just a fraction of that: maybe 20 TWh in all.

These are exciting predictions. They tell us that, as things stand, the UK government is fully expecting a colossal increase in renewable energy supplies over the next nine years.

The only things standing in the way are our rather byzantine and cumbersome planning proceedures and the idiotic nimby groups like VVASP which make such a mockery of the democratic process.

All the same, the government's predictions are what they are. Regardless of fraudulent VVASP-type campaign groups and the odd Blimp introducing silly Private Members Bills, the march towards renewables will proceed apace.

Nuclear barely gets a look in. The reason being that it's way too expensive. As Tom Burke, Environmental Policy Advisor to Rio Tinto and visiting professor at Imperial College and UCL, wrote recently in The Independent:

The reality is that for all the rhetoric and manipulated headlines, the nuclear renaissance is far from assured. The awful economics that halted its first wave of nuclear construction remain the biggest obstacle to its ability to contribute significantly to meeting the twin challenges of climate and energy security. Nuclear is a future technology whose time has past. The real future belongs to wind, solar and all the other renewable energy technologies.

The idiot nimby fringe protests that wind power is massively subsidised, and some of their more deluded members even claim that developers like ScottishPower Renewables are only building windfarms in order to get their hands on government subsidies. But, well, that's idiocy for you. There is a levy on electricity usage which helps to invest in the entire renewables industry - it works out at about 0.35 pence per kilowatt/hour.

Compare that with the £3,000 that the average UK household will be contributing to the costs of decommissioning Britain's ageing nuclear power stations. And let's not forget - we're still not entirely sure what to do with all that hazardous waste.

The tiresome argument which continually tries to insist that renewables 'don't work' has already been lost. Only those who are so ignorant of the facts they might as well have been reading the Daily Mail continue to hawk these ridiculous arguments about the place. They're a bit like people who insist that the internet will never come to anything, or that mobile phones 'don't work'. They're wrong, they've always been wrong, and events are outstripping them so fast that, basically, they couldn't be more wrong. They're getting wronger all the time.

So, its by-and-large bye-bye nuclear (and good riddance), hello renewables. The future is bright.

Now we just have to get those bigoted, desperate, hysterical, mendacious, irresponsible, foolish and inconsiderate nookies to shut up.

ANOTHER MYTH LAID TO REST

It has been brought to our attention that a fool has written on the VVASP website, angrily questioning what right the Advertising Standards Authority had to criticise VVASP's publicity. This dimwit stated that the ASA were just a bunch of 'government lackeys' peddling the government's line on renewables.

Well, as usual it falls to us here at Wind of Change to bring a little reality check to the weird and whacky world of the anti-wind nimbies.

First of all, the ASA is not a government body. It is funded by the advertising industry and has consistently shown that it is as independent and impartial in adjudicating against government-sponsored advertising campaigns as it is against (or for) anybody else.

So to claim that the ASA is somehow in the government's pocket is yet another blatant lie promoted by nimbies who have been caught out telling porkies.

As for whether or not the ASA has a 'right' to adjudicate against anti-windfarm groups and their irresponsible literature - well, the authority exists to investigate complaints regarding any such advertising. The maniacs of VVASP were silly enough to print a whole pack of lies and stuff these through people's letterboxes, and so they rendered themselves prone to an ASA investigation and (because they'd been telling fibs) an adverse adjudication.

Presumably, Mr Idiot feels that all advertisers should be allowed to make any old claims they feel like without any scrutiny or oversight at all. Certainly, such a situation would suit the likes of VVASP. But the public has a right to be protected from such liars and their scandalous publications. Which is why the ASA exists, to police the advertising industry and anybody else who seeks to sway public opinion in a manner that is untruthful and contrary to the public good.

But typically, having been caught out, fair and square, the naughty nookies of the Lenches continue to cry foul. The last thing they want is a level playing field.

Thankfully, though, we live in a civilised and essentially democratic society, and there are safeguards in place to prevent dishonest groups like VVASP from having everything their own way.

THE REAL VOICE OF THE LENCHES

Quite a number of the witless 'objections' to the Lenchwick Windfarm planning application start with something like this: 'I moved to the Lenches four years ago, making a great personal sacrifice in the process (because the city where I lived previously had shops and stuff in it), but I did so because I treasured the rural tranquility of the Lenches. This will be totally destroyed when a handful of remarkably quiet wind turbines are erected in a place where I won't be able to see them, most of the time ... etc., etc., bats, sleep disorders, VVASP told me to write this ...' and so on.

So it's interesting to receive reports of a conversation with somebody who has lived in the Lenches for a good deal longer than most of the protesters. A person of a certain age, that is, who has spent their whole life there.

The individual in question no longer visits the local club for a drink, having grown tired of being hectored and harangued by red-faced loonies. The person concerned knows about windfarms, having spent a reasonable amount of time in very close proximity to them, but they quickly discovered that they were not allowed to express their opinion - an opinion based on fact and experience - because the nimbies didn't like it.

The word used by this person to describe the nimbies was 'rabid'. The individual complained that Parish Councils had been 'taken over' by rampaging nookies and all alternative opinions had been shouted down. Basically, you are not allowed to express support for the windfarm in the Lenches - if you do, some nutter will lay into you.

A similar situation has prevailed in the local papers, where people who know nothing about windfarms have yelled and screamed at the people who do.

This is not the first time we have heard of the genuine grassroots of the area expressing their support for the windfarm - a retired farmer, not so long ago, announced that he couldn't for the life of him see how the turbines could do anybody any harm. Naturally, though, while the villages in question are cowering under the iron grip of VVASP's propaganda machine, such viewpoints are completely ignored. Worse, they invite verbal assaults from nincompoops who don't know what they're on about.

Once again, we find that (when an independent-minded individual in the Lenches gets the chance to speak) there are many in the area who support, or at least do not oppose, the windfarm.

Stand by for yet another barrage of nimby filth directed against those who refuse to be cowed by VVASP's bullies and liars.

OUTREAYGEOUS

In a monstrously disingenuous email, published in the Evesham Journal, the leader of the discredited protest group VVASP tried to justify the ludicrous claims made by his manic nimbies about wind farm noise. He cited the fact that Lord Reay of Hutton has tabled a Private Members Bill in the House of Lords, calling for a 2km exclusion zone around windfarm developments, as some kind of demented 'proof' that windfarms are noisy.

Well, Lord Reay of Hutton isn't exactly up-to-date with environmental issues and the needs of the planet. He rebelled against his own party in 2008 to vote 'Not Content' to an amendment to the Planning Bill which stated that the 'Policy must mitigate and adapt to climate change'. He was, in fact, the only Tory peer to do so.

What does this tell us? That Lord Reay of Hutton doesn't know the first thing about the need for renewables - or doesn't care (he's pretty ancient, you know). Which makes him just the sort of friend the nasty nimbies are looking for - an aged buffer with absolutely no grasp of reality.

Lord Reay also lent his (inconsiderable) weight to a campaign trying to stop the Armistead windfarm development in the Lake District. In July of this year, the High Court rejected the loopy appeal, granting the developers the go-ahead for the windfarm. The whole process cost the misguided anti campaigners a huge amount of money, and all for nothing. The windfarm will happen. Lord Reay's intervention was irrelevant.

So, should we worry about Lord Reay's Private Members Bill? No. It's just a stick-in-the-mud, antediluvian Tory, totally out of touch with the modern world and even his own party, playing a very, very silly game on behalf of a bunch of deluded nutters.

Only a deranged nimby would imagine that Lord Reay's Bill counts for anything.

WHAT'S NOISE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

An interesting development in the nimbies' argument has just been passed onto us by our friends in BLoW ('Back Local Windfarms').

Apparently, one of BLoW's representatives pointed out on the Wychavon District Council website that a windfarm that is very similar indeed to the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm has just got up and running near Mansfield.

The Lindhurst Windfarm is (like Lenchwick) a development of five turbines, the same height as those proposed for Lenchwick, and about the same distance from houses. BLoW were eager to point out that another boring old nimby mob, making the same stupid nimby noises, had opposed the development. We all know the sort of thing: "We believe passionately in renewables but not here!"

The Lindhurst protesters had got two MPs on their side (sound familiar?), and those MPs submitted a petition with over 2,000 names on it to their district council. The usual garbage - too noisy, too close to people's homes, shadow flicker, blah, blah ... But the council took no notice because, as with VVASP's claims, they were all bogus and pretty silly, really.

Anyway, what BLoW tells us has now happened is that one of our local protesters has been on the Wychavon site to point out that the Lindhurst Windfarm planning application received 3,000 letters of support. This person pointed out that, okay, so VVASP have only managed 700 objections (are there 700?), but there have been comparatively few supportive comments.

So, the claim now is that, in Mansfield, the balance of public opinion seemed to be in favour of the windfarm, so it got the go ahead. Whereas, in Lenchwick, the balance of public opinion is (so VVASP would like to think) against the windfarm, so it shouldn't go ahead.

What this tells us is what we suspected all along. VVASP's whole crusade has, in reality, got nothing whatever to do with noise, shadow flicker, house prices, bats or any of the other gobbledegook. No - it's basically a popularity contest.

Having flooded the area with incessant lies for nearly two years, VVASP are now trying to claim that, as they got more (trumped up, ignorant) objections in to Wychavon than there are letters of support, the windfarm shouldn't go ahead. If there had been more letters of support than objections, then presumably it should go ahead.

All this guff about noise and house prices was just a means of scaring people into objecting. They didn't really mean any of it, because the whole point is that it's just down to how many letters of objection you can manage. Preferably, with a few on them not written by Dr No himself.

So now we know - when the protesters go on and on and on about windfarm noise and all that baloney, what they're really saying is: "It's got nothing to do with noise, it's just about influencing public opinion."

And that is what VVASP calls democracy.

A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES

Three cheers for Scotland!!

Just days ago, Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, announced a massive increase in the target set for renewables. Till recently, Scotland was aiming to generate 50% of its electricity from renewables by the year 2020. But that has now changed. The target for renewable energy for Scotland by 2020 is ... wait for it ... 80%.

That's right - 80%!

Incredible! What a far-sighted, conscientious move! Scotland is seeking to become a world leader in the generation of renewable energy (the clue is in the word 'renewable' - no toxic fumes, no greenhouse gas emissions, no burning of fossil fuels, no dangerous and expensive nuclear waste ...) So three cheers for them!

Of course, Mr Salmond is in a privileged position. He doesn't have to contend with the nimby idiots and selfish morons of Middle England. North of the border, the march towards clean, green, renewable energy is well underway and proceeding apace. South of the border, it's stymied by liars and crypto-fascists.

Take the evil doctor's latest move. He attended a conference of weirdos and busybodies and made sure that Wychavon District Council knew that he had - he sent them a 'report' detailing all the daft and nonsensical arguments being used against the government's guidelines for noise.

Now, if you're only interested in listening to one side of a story (that side being the most disreputable faction going), then you'll come out with some very strange theories and ideas. Whatever makes you think that the Chief Executive of your district council needs to know these oddball ideas - well, who can say? We do know that VVASP (i.e., the waspish lie-machine) has been 'updating' Wychavon about windfarm planning applications on a regular basis for a good eighteen months or more. This, we can assume, is yet another fanatical propaganda campaign based on misinformation and the highly selective release of news. We can take it as read that, whatever Dr No has been telling the council, it is anything but the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

So - where do we stand? If you're lucky enough to enjoy Scottish residency, you're in the position of being able to embrace the twenty-first century, safe in the knowledge that your political leaders have seen the massive problems facing mankind and are taking sensible, considerate and intelligent steps to deal with them.

If you're stuck in England, surrounding by loons who can't see beyond their own noses, can't bear the thought of other people benefiting from a sensible and harmless development, can't understand simple concepts and like to think that they run the village, you're in trouble.

As ever, VVASP and its socially irresponsible leader are selling themselves, the local area, the region, the country and the planet and everybody on it downriver. And why?

Because they don't think they should have to see a windfarm from time to time.

Selfishness doesn't get much more selfish than that. These people have been prepared to lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, bully, threaten, harrass, lie, lie and lie again - just because they refuse to do their bit.

It won't cost them anything, having a windfarm nearby, and it'll be extremely beneficial for the area. But that, of course, is of no concern to the mindless maniacs of VVASP. They only care about themselves - and can't even recognise where their best interests lie!!!

I suppose they imagine that the view from the end of their driveway is better than anything that Scotland has to offer.

But then, they're incapable of dealing with reality, so what can you do, eh?

KEEPING STUMM

Ever tried getting blood from a stone? If you have, the chances are you got further than those diehard souls of BLoW who are determined to find out what the so-called Windfarm Working Party has been up to.

The WWP was created by the nimbies and VVASP-members of Church Lench Parish Council (the new-look parish council, that is, established when the howling mob had prevented the real parish council from doing its job). The purpose - or so it was stated when Church Lench wanted money from the surrounding parish councils - was 'information gathering and sharing'.

Well, not very much information has been gathered in the eighteen months or so of the WWP's existence. And as for sharing? You must be having a laugh!

So far, after much persistence, BLoW members have succeeded in acquiring copies of WWP minutes from the summer of 2009. Back then, a few members of the WWP hadn't quite worked out what the point of the Windfarm Working Party was and were still suggesting that they meet up with groups like Friends of the Earth. But, led by the chair of Church Lench Parish Council (a nookie with VVASP placards all over his house), the WWP ignored that sort of suggestion. After all, who wants to know the truth about windfarms?

The notes do show that the WWP had a very odd notion of what education is. They decided that none of the parish councils should attempt to inform the public about windfarms - that should be left to VVASP. And what have VVASP done? Grossly misinformed the public about windfarms.

Otherwise, the WWP was only interested in finding excuses to oppose the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. What steps they took to do this (other than keeping themselves in a state of blissful ignorance about wind power) are unclear. Basically, the WWP members and the parish councils are refusing to say.

No minutes taken after the summer of 2009 have been released. The WWP members keep saying that they are 'not subject to the Freedom of Information Act' - a statement which seems a little odd, given that the questions being put to them are entirely legitimate, concern the use of public money (parish council precepts) which was administered, not by the WWP, but by Church Lench Parish Council, and anyway - what right have these people to refuse to answer questions about their 'information gathering and sharing' activities?

It seems, however, that the WWP completely controls the parish councils. Parish Council clerks have been obstinately refusing to pass on information relating to the WWP and its use of our money. The big sticking point is - what brief was given to the solicitor who prepared a report for the parish councils on the Lenchwick Windfarm planning application?

No one will say. No: more than that - they get extremely defensive when asked, pointedly refusing to answer the question. Nobody, it seems, is prepared or allowed to discuss what the parish councillors of the WWP have been up to.

It's pretty clear that they haven't been finding out about windfarms (other than looking for ways to stop them). It's also pretty obvious that the WWP was so biased, so prejudiced, that it instructed the solicitor to find any fault at all, whether or not one existed, with the planning application. This report was then submitted to the district council, at the insistence of the WWP reps, by the parish councils concerned.

However, the WWP members (and their nimby sponsors) know that to reveal the substance of the brief given to the solicitor would give the game away. It would show that the WWP had no intention at all of getting to the truth about windfarms and that the parish councils were tricked into approaching the matter from the same narrow-minded, petty and foolish point-of-view of the Church Lench nimby mob.

Or, put it another way - it would demonstrate, beyond all possible doubt, that the parish councils failed in their obligations and took a biased and misinformed attitude towards the planning application. This started long before the planning application was submitted, by which time the WWP had brainwashed its members, coerced the parish councils into following its lead, and got a solicitor on standby to do its shabby bidding.

And all of that was paid for out of our money. Your taxes. Funding meant for the upkeep of our parishes.

Frankly, they don't have a leg to stand on. All their cowardly attempts to hide behind the 'we don't have to tell you' defence will avail them nothing. They have been caught out playing a stupid and grossly undemocratic game.

They think they got away with it. But BLoW's happy campaigners for truth and justice show no signs of giving up just yet.

NOW THAT'S FUNNY!!

VVASP's latest publicity stunt, designed to make it look as though the evil doctor and his merry maniacs are fighting on behalf of the neighbourhood, has been to write to ScottishPower Renewables, asking the windfarm developer to show a 'social conscience' and withdraw their planning aplication.

Now, stop laughing at the back there! This is serious stuff. Even though VVASP demanding whether SPR has a 'social conscience' is a bit like a Hackney cab calling an ambulance black.

Where, we might well ask, was the 'social conscience' displayed when King Nookie first spread his monstrous lies around the area, stuffing his mindless garbage through people's doors in order to confuse and frighten them (these were the lies which were later slammed by the independent Advertising Standards Authority as unsubstantiated and untruthful)?

Where was the 'social conscience' when the same self-centred individual refused to rein in his baying mob and allow the parish council to get on with its business?

Where is the 'social conscience' in repeatedly and consistently misleading your neighbours over the effects of the proposed windfarm, making them believe (for no good reason, and on no grounds whatsoever) that their health will be affected and their houses will tumble in value?

Where is the 'social conscience' in libelling a planning officer as biased when he hasn't even studied the planning application yet? Or in gerrymandering the figures to make it look like the majority in the local area agree with you? Or in browbeating those who are capable of making their own minds up into keeping quiet because only your opinion counts?

And, most of all, where is the 'social conscience' in trying to pretend that the children at Church Lench First School will be at some kind of risk from the windfarm - when the truth is that they could benefit hugely, both financially and educationally, from a development that will do them no harm whatsoever?

The answer, of course, is that there is no social conscience at all in VVASP and its egregious leader. These people can think only of themselves, their own short-term interests, and have happily battled against a fair and reasonable development, using the weapons of lies and bullyboy tactics. They are content to deprive others of clean energy just so that they won't have to see a turbine from time to time. Theirs is the ultimate in hypocrisy, bad science and social terrorism. They are liars, through and through.

But what makes them think they could even persuade a power company to give up on a very sensible development and all the work that has gone into the planning? Well, two reports have appeared, both commissioned by Wychavon, and the nasty nimbies are conning themselves into thinking that they have a case.

The first of these reports, concerning landscape and visual amenity, tells us nothing that we didn't know already. Yes, you can't hide five wind turbines behind a shrubbery. There aren't any turbines there at present, so the windfarm will be a New Thing and will be visible. On the positive side, the report's authors did note that, if they had to design a windfarm for the Lenches, they'd have done it exactly the way Scottish Power have done.

The other report is more problematic. It concerns noise ('What noise?' we hear our more intelligent readers ask) and was drafted by a consultant who almost always works for anti-windfarm nutters. Now, it would be understandable for a consultant who makes money out of nimbies to try to enhance his reputation for battling against windfarms. More worryingly, the consultant in question doesn't seem to bother analysing the planning applications properly - he just files one of his template anti-windfarm reports. His reputation in the industry is not very high, especially as other, more respected consultants have pointed out the biased and poorly argued nature of his reports.

Quite why Wychavon commissioned this dubious consultant to comment on the potential noise issues of the windfarm is a mystery. But because he wrote the very same sort of nonsense that VVASP love to hear, regardless of whether it's backed up by what we call 'Science' or 'Evidence' or not, the mad nookies are foisting their sick adverts on us through the local press and kidding themselves that they've scored some sort of victory. Hence their loopy, self-serving and hypocritical letter to ScottishPower Renewables.

Basically, a biased consultant has written a poor-quality report. So what else is new? Big Chief Nookie and his mad minions have been misquoting reports, inventing stupid stories and trading myths and rumours for months.

Why should SPR withdraw their planning application? It's perfectly sound and, what's more, windfarms are necessary (regardless of what the twits of VVASP say) and there will be more on that subject very soon (watch this space).

The big joke, though, is that VVASP are using the words 'social conscience'. Which is a bit like Adolf Hitler using the words 'political correctness'.

VVASP demonstrably cannot find a social conscience between them - so what right have they got to demand that others have one, eh?