A little while back, one of the purple-faced ones let slip a hint regarding VVASP's tactics. When it was pointed out on the Wychavon planning website that a windfarm development comparable with the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm had received approval, regardless of a half-witted campaign mounted by local nimbies, one of our own nookies snapped back. The other windfarm had the approval of more locals than antis. Ergo, it was allowed to go ahead.
The flaw in the thinking here is obvious. VVASP like to foster the idea that a windfarm can get planning approval only if slightly more local people approve than disapprove of the idea.
The same thinking doesn't seem to have applied to major infrastructure projects in the past. There is no indication that motorways, nuclear power plants, electricity pylons, railways or canals were subject to this 'show-of-hands' democracy. Just think about it: how many progressive developments would realistically have been given the go ahead if approval was dependent on the reactions of local people - especially where craven and dishonest protest groups were allowed to sway opinion?
As we have seen, in France a more sensible attitude prevails. Windfarms are built regardless of what a handful of local weirdos might say. And the locals hold a party when a windfarm goes operational.
This is one of the reasons why the UK's competitors are streaking ahead with renewables while Britain flounders - because of this insane notion that a windfarm should only be allowed if a local campaign in favour is able to overcome the looney lies and fear-mongering of the nimby nutters. The implication being that any major infrastructure project vital to the national interest must be fought over by local groups, some of whom deploy lies and some which publicise the truth. If the liars prevail, no windfarm. If the forward-thinking, conscientious types succeed, the windfarm happens.
Is that democracy?
Of course, VVASP and democracy have something less than a nodding acquaintance with each other. VVASP tried to make out that 82% of Church Lench residents were opposed to the windfarm. Not true. Even after four months of lunatic propaganda and claims which were subsequently proven to be lies, VVASP only managed to get 57% of Lenchians to express opposition.
Now, they're trying to claim that it is a fundamental basis of western democracy that only those who vote against an idea should be heard and counted. Quite apart from the fact that this is to mistake a referendum for a general election, it is in reality a recipe for fascism. The majority of local residents in the three parishes did NOT express opposition to Lenchwick Windfarm, despite the fact that VVASP had been stuffing outrageous, irresponsible and misleading propaganda through their letterboxes.
Even crazier, the initial response of VVASP to the local surveys was to attack the parish councils concerned for not giving them more time to spread their poisonous myths. In Church Lench, the survey was initiated by the original parish council, whose members were eager to play by the rules - which is why they were forced to resign by VVASP's thugs.
So VVASP wasn't happy with the results of the surveys (arguing that their mad lies had not had time to take effect). Their only option was to misrepresent the outcomes of those surveys and claim that the statistics could be ignored. Only those who supported VVASP mattered. Every local resident who couldn't be bothered to respond to their survey should be discounted. Hence the huge disparity between VVASP's claims of an 'overwhelming majority' and the reality. The people of the area had spoken - including those whose indifference was itself a statement.
Which brings us to the agitators of the bogus 'Windfarm Working Party'. This nefarious group was established by Church Lench Parish Council at a time when Church Lench Parish Council didn't actually exist. Its stated aims were to 'gather and share information' both for and against windfarms. It commandeered local tax-payers' money and instantly reneged on its own terms and conditions.
For a year and a half, the Windfarm Working Party has refused to release any information relating to its activities. Anything that the WWP discovered in support of wind power has completely vanished. Hardly surprising, really. The Working Party made no attempt whatsoever to find out anything in support of windfarms. Their knowledge of windfarms is nil.
The parish councils involved in the Windfarm Working Party scam announced that their representatives on the Working Party would feed information back to the councils but would not be involved in the final decisions of the parish councils when it came to responding to the Lenchwick Windfarm planning application.
Interestingly, not one of the clerks of the local parish councils has been prepared to answer questions about the discussions concerning the windfarm planning application. Which only supports the suspicion that, yet again, the Windfarm Working Party ignored its own rules and made sure that each of the councils concerned submitted a naff 'critique and response'. In other words, the WWP reps - who were not meant to dictate the response of the parish councils - went ahead anyway, overriding the democratic process and ensuring that all six parish councils represented the blinkered views of the VVASP members of Church Lench Parish Council.
Now, a reminder. When the public was consulted, only 44% of residents of three parishes expressed opposition to the windfarm (after being subjected to VVASP's mindless propaganda for four months). So the Windfarm Working Party insisted that all parish councils ignore the local surveys and follow the wayward lead of a discredited protest group and their puppets in Church Lench.
And what has Wychavon District Council been doing during all this? Oddly, even though the Environmental Services Department at Wychavon are willing to admit that there was at least one meeting between council officers and members of the Windfarm Working Party, no one seems all that sure about when the meeting took place and who was present. It happened earlier this year, they think, but it would seem that there is no record regarding when it happened and who was there.
One member of the Working Party subsequently sent various emails to the council officers detailing planning decisions which went against this or that windfarm development. One of these emails drew attention to the possibility that the government's guidelines on windfarms and noise could be overruled.
The government is aware that their ETSU-R-97 guidelines are not being properly applied nationwide and have commissioned a study to find out how the guidelines can be imposed equally and fairly in all cases. But one of the Working Party nimbies was eager to impress upon the Environmental Protection Manager at Wychavon the possibility that the government's guidelines could be ignored.
Hardly the sort of behaviour we might expect from an 'information gathering and sharing' working party. Rather, just the sort of thing we can expect from a deranged fanatic whose information comes exclusively from a discredited protest group.
The problem of course is that while Wychavon continues to be vague and surprisingly coy when it comes to admitting the extent of the pressure being exerted on council officers by the red-faced nimbies, it remains difficult to determine when the one-way flow of misleading propaganda began. The regular badgering of council members and officers by VVASP had begun by March 2009. By December 2009, the Environmental Services Department at Wychavon were 'on message', wrongly believing that the acoustic industry was unhappy with the government's established guidelines and happily hiring a partisan noise consultant. And now we find that, months later, the same department was still receiving bogus information from the local lunatic fringe, leading to the impression that the government guidelines were optional and could be safely 'overruled'.
VVASP had failed to sway the majority of local people, so they set their sights on Wychavon, spreading their misinformation to the council officers who were able to spend public money on dodgy consultants. If you will, just as local public opinion could be overruled and ignored by the nimby nutters, so could the national guidelines on windfarms and noise. In the weird and whacky world of VVASP, everything they're not happy with can be ignored or misrepresented, including the obligations of the local councils. And anyone in the area who expressed support for the Lenchwick Windfarm proposals could be silenced.
Those who exercised their democratic right to support the planning application could expect to be contacted by nimbies who attacked them for their clear-sighted and public-spirited views. Even the Head of Planning at Wychavon has expressed regret at discovering that those who chose to exercise their democratic rights have been harassed by the fascist mob. VVASP had hoped to get at least 1,000 letters of objection. They failed, managing (by their own account) about 740 objections, a substantial number of which are fake, phoney or just plain silly. Individuals who hardly even read paperbacks claim to have read all the planning documentation. People who haven't sat on a horse in years insist that their horse-riding activities will be curtailed by the windfarm (why?). And people who've never been anywhere near the Lenches all claim to have made the same friends in the area and to have watched the same brown hares through the same window of the Lenches Club.
Plumbing the depths of VVASP's dishonesty is impossible. They lied to the neighbourhood, shrieked when the community revealed its lack of interest in the issue, lied a whole lot more, misrepresented the strength of local feeling, disposed of conscientious parish councillors in order to create a VVASP parish council, established a Windfarm Working Party before there was even a parish council in place to administer it, misappropriated tax-payers' money to spend exclusively on anti-windfarm campaigning, bombarded the district council with misleading nonsense and one-sided claptrap designed to fool public servants, forced the local parish councils into toeing the Church Lench line and bullied and harassed anyone who expressed an independent opinion.
All this to try to manufacture the impression that the majority of local people are opposed to the windfarm and therefore the windfarm shouldn't go ahead.
These people are dangerous. They are evil. They are woefully misguided, fanatically doctrinaire, ideologically unsound, anti-democratic and shamelessly unpatriotic.
And so far, Wychavon DC have done nothing to help the real majority in the local area.
Welcome to Worcestershire, where democracy lies bleeding and crazed fanatics make decisions on everybody else's behalf, regardless of what the people really think.
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Friday, 3 December 2010
THE NEXT GENERATION
Yippee!!!!
Wind of Change has reached an impressive milestone! This, folks, is the 200th blog-post. Yes: since May 2009, when the blog began, there have been no fewer than 200 posts. In that time, we have examined pretty much every aspect of the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. More importantly, we have highlighted the moral bankruptcy of the disgraceful and discredited campaign against the windfarm led by the proven liars of VVASP. We have looked into their mad claims, found the evidence which refutes them (not difficult), and publicised their shocking tactics and vile behaviour.
Whatever the outcome of the Development Control Committee's meeting, sometime in the new year, with regard to the Lenchwick Windfarm, we here at Wind of Change have at least let the world know the extent of VVASP's dishonesty and determination to turn the community into a vicious, intolerant, belligerent and misguided neighbourhood utterly opposed to a sensible, beneficial and vital development.
To celebrate our double century, we are delighted to announce that the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) have jumped on the Wind of Change bandwagon by issuing a press release entitled Wind of Change: Youth Survey Thumbs Up for Renewables.
In the run up to the Copenhagen conference on climate change, young people in the UK made repeated approaches to DECC asking that their views be fed into the deliberations. This made sense - after all, it's not the ageing nimbies of Lench who will have to live with the consequences of their actions (and their insane anti-renewables campaign) but the younger generation. They will either reap the rewards of an intelligent energy/climate change policy or suffer the consequences of failure and short-sightedness.
The DECC established a Youth Panel to help channel the views of young people into the policy-making process. 299 young people, aged 29 and under, were surveyed. And guess what? The vast majority support renewables, with over 80% of the youngsters championing onshore windfarms (and over 90% supporting offshore wind and solar).
As one of the Youth Panel members says, 'We do not want to inherit a diminished planet, as it often seems we are being asked to, and this is a huge step towards ensuring a sustainable and equitable future for our and subsequent generations.'
Of course, while the intelligent and articulate younger generation are calling for greater strides towards a sustainable future, the addled brains of Lench are trying to oppose this. Basically, they don't want to believe in climate change (because that would imply that they have participated in the destruction and might require them to atone for their sins of wastefulness) and windfarms are a clear reminder of our obligations. They are also beautiful, entrancing, inspiring and reassuring presences (unless you're a blinkered nimby).
Thanks to a few massively irreponsible right-wing newspapers, and the shabby antics of Lord Lawson, among others, the fools of Lench think they have a case. Forget the global scientific consensus - a sparse handful of non-experts disagree about climate change and therefore we shouldn't have to catch sight of a windfarm from time to time. QED.
What the DECC Youth Panel survey proves, though, is that the VVASP position is rapidly joining the Dodo and the dinosaurs. The up-and-coming generation recognises the pressing need to adapt and accepts that renewables are the answer.
Furthermore, windfarms are not an imposition, as the fools and frauds of VVASP like to make out. They bring positive benefits. An Italian town has four turbines which generate such an excess of wind power that the townsfolk are able to sell 30% of their electricity to Italy's equivalent of the National Grid, making an income of over £144,000 annually for the town.
If the sensible residents of the Lenches hadn't been shouted down by the liars and their deluded followers, our local community might have been in a position to negotiate benefits above and beyond those that will naturally come with the windfarm. But blind prejudice and extreme foolishness ensured that the area sank into a slough of malevolence. It could, and it should, have been so different. We have a handful of fanatics and cretins to thank for that.
It's a crying shame that so many of the protesters are advanced in years and incapable of seeing the way the wind is blowing, or of recognising and accepting the needs of the wider society and the generations to come. In fact, it's more than a shame. It's a massive indictment of the selfishness of a few Middle Englanders and their shameless leader.
After 200 blogposts, we know that the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm will do no real harm and will bring much that is positive. We know that (unless you've been indoctrinated by Dr Evil's manic propaganda) there is nothing to fear and everything to look forward to. We know now that the voice of the younger generation is fairly unanimous in its support of renewables.
Realistically, we know that there are no good, sound, sensible and realistic objections to the windfarm. Sadly, though, we also know that there are endless dishonest, illogical, unscientific and plain bogus reasons to object. We know that because VVASP drilled so many of those stupid 'reasons' into the heads of those who were silly enough to listen to them.
Come on, Lenchfolk. You can do better than that. You don't have to fall for the lies every time. You could, if you chose to, listen to those who will inherit the mess we are making of the planet. You could listen to those who are already enjoying the benefits of their local windfarms. You could even consider your own pockets and recognise that (regardless of what Dr No and his deranged minions have told you) you'll probably do pretty well out of the windfarm.
You could accept that a win-win situation is being offered.
Or you could carry on regurgitating VVASP's crazy stories. And then no one wins.
After 200 blogposts, we are happy to state that everything VVASP has told you is rubbish. We've proven that beyond any reasonable doubt. So now, do your bit and stop letting a handful of problem personalities ruin your area. Think of your children, and their children. Welcome the windfarm. It's the logical, sensible, reasonable thing to do.
Wind of Change has reached an impressive milestone! This, folks, is the 200th blog-post. Yes: since May 2009, when the blog began, there have been no fewer than 200 posts. In that time, we have examined pretty much every aspect of the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. More importantly, we have highlighted the moral bankruptcy of the disgraceful and discredited campaign against the windfarm led by the proven liars of VVASP. We have looked into their mad claims, found the evidence which refutes them (not difficult), and publicised their shocking tactics and vile behaviour.
Whatever the outcome of the Development Control Committee's meeting, sometime in the new year, with regard to the Lenchwick Windfarm, we here at Wind of Change have at least let the world know the extent of VVASP's dishonesty and determination to turn the community into a vicious, intolerant, belligerent and misguided neighbourhood utterly opposed to a sensible, beneficial and vital development.
To celebrate our double century, we are delighted to announce that the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) have jumped on the Wind of Change bandwagon by issuing a press release entitled Wind of Change: Youth Survey Thumbs Up for Renewables.
In the run up to the Copenhagen conference on climate change, young people in the UK made repeated approaches to DECC asking that their views be fed into the deliberations. This made sense - after all, it's not the ageing nimbies of Lench who will have to live with the consequences of their actions (and their insane anti-renewables campaign) but the younger generation. They will either reap the rewards of an intelligent energy/climate change policy or suffer the consequences of failure and short-sightedness.
The DECC established a Youth Panel to help channel the views of young people into the policy-making process. 299 young people, aged 29 and under, were surveyed. And guess what? The vast majority support renewables, with over 80% of the youngsters championing onshore windfarms (and over 90% supporting offshore wind and solar).
As one of the Youth Panel members says, 'We do not want to inherit a diminished planet, as it often seems we are being asked to, and this is a huge step towards ensuring a sustainable and equitable future for our and subsequent generations.'
Of course, while the intelligent and articulate younger generation are calling for greater strides towards a sustainable future, the addled brains of Lench are trying to oppose this. Basically, they don't want to believe in climate change (because that would imply that they have participated in the destruction and might require them to atone for their sins of wastefulness) and windfarms are a clear reminder of our obligations. They are also beautiful, entrancing, inspiring and reassuring presences (unless you're a blinkered nimby).
Thanks to a few massively irreponsible right-wing newspapers, and the shabby antics of Lord Lawson, among others, the fools of Lench think they have a case. Forget the global scientific consensus - a sparse handful of non-experts disagree about climate change and therefore we shouldn't have to catch sight of a windfarm from time to time. QED.
What the DECC Youth Panel survey proves, though, is that the VVASP position is rapidly joining the Dodo and the dinosaurs. The up-and-coming generation recognises the pressing need to adapt and accepts that renewables are the answer.
Furthermore, windfarms are not an imposition, as the fools and frauds of VVASP like to make out. They bring positive benefits. An Italian town has four turbines which generate such an excess of wind power that the townsfolk are able to sell 30% of their electricity to Italy's equivalent of the National Grid, making an income of over £144,000 annually for the town.
If the sensible residents of the Lenches hadn't been shouted down by the liars and their deluded followers, our local community might have been in a position to negotiate benefits above and beyond those that will naturally come with the windfarm. But blind prejudice and extreme foolishness ensured that the area sank into a slough of malevolence. It could, and it should, have been so different. We have a handful of fanatics and cretins to thank for that.
It's a crying shame that so many of the protesters are advanced in years and incapable of seeing the way the wind is blowing, or of recognising and accepting the needs of the wider society and the generations to come. In fact, it's more than a shame. It's a massive indictment of the selfishness of a few Middle Englanders and their shameless leader.
After 200 blogposts, we know that the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm will do no real harm and will bring much that is positive. We know that (unless you've been indoctrinated by Dr Evil's manic propaganda) there is nothing to fear and everything to look forward to. We know now that the voice of the younger generation is fairly unanimous in its support of renewables.
Realistically, we know that there are no good, sound, sensible and realistic objections to the windfarm. Sadly, though, we also know that there are endless dishonest, illogical, unscientific and plain bogus reasons to object. We know that because VVASP drilled so many of those stupid 'reasons' into the heads of those who were silly enough to listen to them.
Come on, Lenchfolk. You can do better than that. You don't have to fall for the lies every time. You could, if you chose to, listen to those who will inherit the mess we are making of the planet. You could listen to those who are already enjoying the benefits of their local windfarms. You could even consider your own pockets and recognise that (regardless of what Dr No and his deranged minions have told you) you'll probably do pretty well out of the windfarm.
You could accept that a win-win situation is being offered.
Or you could carry on regurgitating VVASP's crazy stories. And then no one wins.
After 200 blogposts, we are happy to state that everything VVASP has told you is rubbish. We've proven that beyond any reasonable doubt. So now, do your bit and stop letting a handful of problem personalities ruin your area. Think of your children, and their children. Welcome the windfarm. It's the logical, sensible, reasonable thing to do.
Monday, 29 November 2010
COLOSSAL STUPIDITY
What would you say if your neighbours were conspiring to lower the value of your property?
Back in February, the independent Advertising Standards Authority judged three of VVASP's claims about the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm to be unreasonable. They breached the Code of Advertising Practice guidelines on Truthfulness and Substantiation. They were, in short, lies. Irresponsible, foolish, ludicrous lies.
Instantly, of course, there was a backlash - both from the nutcases who had published the false claims and the idiots who had believed them. Some of the sillier locals competed to see who could claim the biggest fall in property values in the area. Off the radar, so to speak, the mindless drones of VVASP argued that (regardless of the ASA ruling) their homes had lost value. And all because of a windfarm that doesn't exist yet.
Well, perhaps they should have read the report which they were so eager to misquote.
They had taken part of a sentence from an Oxford Brookes University study, funded by the RICS, into windfarms and house prices and quoted it as if it represented the findings of that study. It didn't. Basically, they had done what certain dodgy impresarios have been known to do. Take a word or two from a report out of context and advertise the hell out of it.
It seemed pretty clear that VVASP had not read the report they were so keen to misquote. A closer examination of the report itself apparently confirms this.
The report itself remarked that 'the "threat" of a wind farm may have a more significant impact [on house prices] than the actual presence of one.'
Take a look around the Lenches and you'll see a supposedly peaceful rural area (parts of which aren't that peaceful at all, really) which has been vandalised by the pigs of VVASP. They have colluded in making their own properties practically unsellable. At a time of global recession and great uncertainty, they plastered their area with hideous, monstrous and painfully silly placards. Nasty yellow placards saying 'NO'.
Who in their right minds who go looking for a cosy rural retreat and settle on an area where there are so many of those moronic 'NO' signs?
Are they welcoming? 'NO'.
Do they suggest a calm and tranquil neighbourhood, a pleasant and tolerant community? 'NO'.
Have the maniacs of VVASP ruined their own property market with their depressing placards?
'YES'.
So here's the reality check. The windfarm will not have an adverse effect on house prices. Not at all. If anything, as various reports now indicate, it will provide a local boost to property values. As with Burton Latimer, where estate agents routinely advertise proximity to the Burtonwold windfarm as a Unique Selling Point, the Lenchwick Windfarm will prove to be a positive boon when it comes to house prices in the Lenches.
Which should make them all sit up and notice, especially as there are quite a few in the Lenches who can think of nothing but their net worth.
But VVASP have hammered property values in the area with their ridiculous, duplicitous, utterly crazed and deeply dishonest protest. Any fall, real or imagined, in the values of properties in the Lenches is entirely down to the brainless demagogues of the nimby movement. They have only themselves to blame.
If they had reacted in a more intelligent, grown up and responsible way to the proposals, they might not have seen a fall in house prices in the area.
Now, seriously, how stupid can you get? Who would willingly reduce the market value of their capital assets?
VVASP would. And not just for themselves. For everyone. It's that Dr No again, making everyone else suffer and pay for his mindless opposition to a brilliant, beautiful and beneficial scheme.
The picture's pretty clear. The windfarm will boost your property value. VVASP will smash it.
And so the intelligent decision is ... ?
Back in February, the independent Advertising Standards Authority judged three of VVASP's claims about the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm to be unreasonable. They breached the Code of Advertising Practice guidelines on Truthfulness and Substantiation. They were, in short, lies. Irresponsible, foolish, ludicrous lies.
Instantly, of course, there was a backlash - both from the nutcases who had published the false claims and the idiots who had believed them. Some of the sillier locals competed to see who could claim the biggest fall in property values in the area. Off the radar, so to speak, the mindless drones of VVASP argued that (regardless of the ASA ruling) their homes had lost value. And all because of a windfarm that doesn't exist yet.
Well, perhaps they should have read the report which they were so eager to misquote.
They had taken part of a sentence from an Oxford Brookes University study, funded by the RICS, into windfarms and house prices and quoted it as if it represented the findings of that study. It didn't. Basically, they had done what certain dodgy impresarios have been known to do. Take a word or two from a report out of context and advertise the hell out of it.
It seemed pretty clear that VVASP had not read the report they were so keen to misquote. A closer examination of the report itself apparently confirms this.
The report itself remarked that 'the "threat" of a wind farm may have a more significant impact [on house prices] than the actual presence of one.'
Take a look around the Lenches and you'll see a supposedly peaceful rural area (parts of which aren't that peaceful at all, really) which has been vandalised by the pigs of VVASP. They have colluded in making their own properties practically unsellable. At a time of global recession and great uncertainty, they plastered their area with hideous, monstrous and painfully silly placards. Nasty yellow placards saying 'NO'.
Who in their right minds who go looking for a cosy rural retreat and settle on an area where there are so many of those moronic 'NO' signs?
Are they welcoming? 'NO'.
Do they suggest a calm and tranquil neighbourhood, a pleasant and tolerant community? 'NO'.
Have the maniacs of VVASP ruined their own property market with their depressing placards?
'YES'.
So here's the reality check. The windfarm will not have an adverse effect on house prices. Not at all. If anything, as various reports now indicate, it will provide a local boost to property values. As with Burton Latimer, where estate agents routinely advertise proximity to the Burtonwold windfarm as a Unique Selling Point, the Lenchwick Windfarm will prove to be a positive boon when it comes to house prices in the Lenches.
Which should make them all sit up and notice, especially as there are quite a few in the Lenches who can think of nothing but their net worth.
But VVASP have hammered property values in the area with their ridiculous, duplicitous, utterly crazed and deeply dishonest protest. Any fall, real or imagined, in the values of properties in the Lenches is entirely down to the brainless demagogues of the nimby movement. They have only themselves to blame.
If they had reacted in a more intelligent, grown up and responsible way to the proposals, they might not have seen a fall in house prices in the area.
Now, seriously, how stupid can you get? Who would willingly reduce the market value of their capital assets?
VVASP would. And not just for themselves. For everyone. It's that Dr No again, making everyone else suffer and pay for his mindless opposition to a brilliant, beautiful and beneficial scheme.
The picture's pretty clear. The windfarm will boost your property value. VVASP will smash it.
And so the intelligent decision is ... ?
Thursday, 25 November 2010
RESIDENTS LIKE THE WIND FARM
The Northants Evening Telegraph ran a piece under this heading on Tuesday 9 November. It related to an exhibition of plans to extend the successful Burtonwold Windfarm near Burton Latimer.
Pam Mills, 64, was quoted. She will have a clear view of the turbines from her house nearby:
'I'm fully in favour 100 per cent. We think they are beautiful and graceful.
'I can see all 10 from my house and watched them being erected.
'I'm really happy with them. When my grandchildren come in, the first thing they say is: "Granny, wind mills."'
As tends to be the case, up and down the country communities which have a windfarm nearby are their strongest advocates. People who have had the privilege to become familiar with wind turbines in the neighbourhood by and large love them.
Immediately beneath this wholly optimistic, good-news piece was an inset. Another nimby group had been opposing plans for a windfarm elsewhere for five years.
This group is called BLOT and it's just as shameless in its unprincipled opposition and dishonest practice as VVASP. The usual lies about windfarms are promoted endlessly, the usual suspects are drafted in to write their bogus reports, the usual hysterical and misleading scare-stories are spread about.
The difference between these two communities? One has a windfarm, loves it and is looking forward to getting more turbines, partly because they are 'beautiful and graceful' and partly because of the tangible benefits that windfarms bring to such communities. The other doesn't have a windfarm (yet) and a bunch of lunatic busy-bodies are trying to make sure that their neighbours never get to see the benefits.
Madness.
And that's where we are here in Lenchwick. An abusive, exploitative, misleading, aggressive, insanely illogical, dishonest, discredited, evil campaign mounted by a handful of trouble-makers is trying to stop a wholly beneficial development.
One day (please God) we will be just like the good folk of Burton Latimer (and elsewhere) who know the facts about wind power and can't get enough of it. Till then, we're in the sad, perplexed, confused state of those at Bozeat (and elsewhere) because of a few demented and disgusting nimbies.
We have the option of seeing our lives and our landscape enhanced, of gaining the cherished beauty and 'calming effect' of the wind turbines, and of benefiting from the financial input while doing our bit for the country as a whole. It's a win-win situation. The only person who loses out is Dr Rod Stroud because he told such a pack of lies about the development that his reputation will be shot to pieces.
But thanks to Dr No and his fanatical bullies, we're being nudged towards losing out on all this. The only person who will benefit from us not getting the windfarm will be Stroud - and even then, it's a miserable benefit. Okay, so he won't get to see the turbines from time to time. Bully for him. But there will be no net gain, no material gain - only the satisfaction of knowing that his campaign of lies and intimidation worked, that he was able to overturn the democratic process and deny his neighbours a whole host of benefits, including those relating to the value of their property, and that the community and the UK as a whole is a lot worse off because of him.
Could it get any crazier than that?
Pam Mills, 64, was quoted. She will have a clear view of the turbines from her house nearby:
'I'm fully in favour 100 per cent. We think they are beautiful and graceful.
'I can see all 10 from my house and watched them being erected.
'I'm really happy with them. When my grandchildren come in, the first thing they say is: "Granny, wind mills."'
As tends to be the case, up and down the country communities which have a windfarm nearby are their strongest advocates. People who have had the privilege to become familiar with wind turbines in the neighbourhood by and large love them.
Immediately beneath this wholly optimistic, good-news piece was an inset. Another nimby group had been opposing plans for a windfarm elsewhere for five years.
This group is called BLOT and it's just as shameless in its unprincipled opposition and dishonest practice as VVASP. The usual lies about windfarms are promoted endlessly, the usual suspects are drafted in to write their bogus reports, the usual hysterical and misleading scare-stories are spread about.
The difference between these two communities? One has a windfarm, loves it and is looking forward to getting more turbines, partly because they are 'beautiful and graceful' and partly because of the tangible benefits that windfarms bring to such communities. The other doesn't have a windfarm (yet) and a bunch of lunatic busy-bodies are trying to make sure that their neighbours never get to see the benefits.
Madness.
And that's where we are here in Lenchwick. An abusive, exploitative, misleading, aggressive, insanely illogical, dishonest, discredited, evil campaign mounted by a handful of trouble-makers is trying to stop a wholly beneficial development.
One day (please God) we will be just like the good folk of Burton Latimer (and elsewhere) who know the facts about wind power and can't get enough of it. Till then, we're in the sad, perplexed, confused state of those at Bozeat (and elsewhere) because of a few demented and disgusting nimbies.
We have the option of seeing our lives and our landscape enhanced, of gaining the cherished beauty and 'calming effect' of the wind turbines, and of benefiting from the financial input while doing our bit for the country as a whole. It's a win-win situation. The only person who loses out is Dr Rod Stroud because he told such a pack of lies about the development that his reputation will be shot to pieces.
But thanks to Dr No and his fanatical bullies, we're being nudged towards losing out on all this. The only person who will benefit from us not getting the windfarm will be Stroud - and even then, it's a miserable benefit. Okay, so he won't get to see the turbines from time to time. Bully for him. But there will be no net gain, no material gain - only the satisfaction of knowing that his campaign of lies and intimidation worked, that he was able to overturn the democratic process and deny his neighbours a whole host of benefits, including those relating to the value of their property, and that the community and the UK as a whole is a lot worse off because of him.
Could it get any crazier than that?
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
MISCELLANEOUS
Here's a measure of how inept the so-called Windfarm Working Party was when it came to gathering and sharing information both in favour of and against windfarms. They didn't even know what the County's strategy on renewables was!!
A few posts back, we reported on the document produced by Worcestershire County Council in January 2009. That was just two months before the Windfarm Working Party was created in order to do the bidding of the nookies on Church Lench Parish Council.
Did the WWP note that Worcestershire had identified Wychavon (i.e., here) as having windfarm potential? Did the daft burghers of the six parishes realise that the County's document had called for a cascade of effective and reliable information on the matter of renewables to trickle down from the local authorities?
Apparently not. The Working Party announced that only its friends in VVASP were allowed to 'educate' the community. They actively prevented the parish councils from distributing useful 'education'. They saw it as the job of a deluded and eventually discredited protest group to 'educate' the people, completely ignoring what the County Council felt was desirable.
With four-and-a-half grand of our money to play with, we might have expected the WWP to do a bit of research. Visit a comparable windfarm site. Contact the local authorities for advice and guidance. Meet up with pro-wind groups. Did any of that happen?
Nah!!!
Meanwhile, good old BLoW have unearthed a briefing paper prepared for Members of Parliament which points out that, actually, house prices are more likely to RISE faster near a windfarm than further away. It's on the Wychavon website.
This blog has been considering the evidence with regard to property values for some time, and now the House of Commons agrees that windfarms do not have an adverse effect on house prices. If anything, quite the reverse! And in Wales, 500 metres is the accepted distance between windfarms and property. Seems fair enough.
And guess what - VVASP commissioned their dreary 'Visual Impact' report from a pet 'consultant'. Bizarrely, this tedious waffle arrived just over three months too late (the official deadline for the public consultation period was July 31st). Even more bizarre is the fact that the geezer who put this boring document together hasn't really grasped the whole renewables issue.
Geoffrey Sinclair, the obscure individual who took VVASP's thirty pieces of silver, apparently thinks that nuclear power is renewable. In a document published this September, Sinclair remarked on 'The Westminster Government's commitment to develop nuclear power as the primary source of renewable energy in the UK and hence the marginal relevance of onshore wind as the platform for renewable energy generation in Wales.'
Hmmnn ... let's try to sift the fact from the fudge here. The Westminster Government's 'commitment' to developing a new nuclear program is questionable. No public money will be made available for the construction of new nuclear power plants. And no nuclear power plant has been built without massive public subsidy. Not much of a commitment, then.
Furthermore, nuclear is not renewable. It's a fossil fuel system. There is something extraodinarily duplicitous or wildly off-target in pretending that nuclear is renewable. It means that the consultant hired (rather late in the day?) by VVASP is either hopelessly muddled or chronically mendacious (and hugely out-of-date: renewables are predicted to overtake nuclear by 2013, so where is this government 'commitment' to the beloved nuclear industry?)
Either way, VVASP have found the landscape equivalent of Mike Stigwood, the maverick noise consultant with an axe to grind whom the district council decided to retain after conversations with the VVASP puppets in the Windfarm Working Party. The WWP was the group which could not be bothered to find out anything at all about windfarms but proved fairly effective at identifying what sort of expert or thing could maybe stop a windfarm planning application in its tracks.
Biased? Bigoted? Utterly out-of-touch with reality? Er ... yeah.
But there is some good emerging from all this. As VVASP's lies are exposed, its hideous ideology and tactics revealed, its concerted attempts at gerrymandering and fixing local democracy are brought to light, and as a steady stream of positive news and developments pours in, utterly demolishing the ricketty case VVASP have been trying to put together, the tide is quite clearly turning. The fools and fascists of VVASP are looking shakier, now. They have relied on unreliable consultants, just as they have relied on unreliable information.
Bring on the windfarm - let's show the people just how many lies VVASP have told!
A few posts back, we reported on the document produced by Worcestershire County Council in January 2009. That was just two months before the Windfarm Working Party was created in order to do the bidding of the nookies on Church Lench Parish Council.
Did the WWP note that Worcestershire had identified Wychavon (i.e., here) as having windfarm potential? Did the daft burghers of the six parishes realise that the County's document had called for a cascade of effective and reliable information on the matter of renewables to trickle down from the local authorities?
Apparently not. The Working Party announced that only its friends in VVASP were allowed to 'educate' the community. They actively prevented the parish councils from distributing useful 'education'. They saw it as the job of a deluded and eventually discredited protest group to 'educate' the people, completely ignoring what the County Council felt was desirable.
With four-and-a-half grand of our money to play with, we might have expected the WWP to do a bit of research. Visit a comparable windfarm site. Contact the local authorities for advice and guidance. Meet up with pro-wind groups. Did any of that happen?
Nah!!!
Meanwhile, good old BLoW have unearthed a briefing paper prepared for Members of Parliament which points out that, actually, house prices are more likely to RISE faster near a windfarm than further away. It's on the Wychavon website.
This blog has been considering the evidence with regard to property values for some time, and now the House of Commons agrees that windfarms do not have an adverse effect on house prices. If anything, quite the reverse! And in Wales, 500 metres is the accepted distance between windfarms and property. Seems fair enough.
And guess what - VVASP commissioned their dreary 'Visual Impact' report from a pet 'consultant'. Bizarrely, this tedious waffle arrived just over three months too late (the official deadline for the public consultation period was July 31st). Even more bizarre is the fact that the geezer who put this boring document together hasn't really grasped the whole renewables issue.
Geoffrey Sinclair, the obscure individual who took VVASP's thirty pieces of silver, apparently thinks that nuclear power is renewable. In a document published this September, Sinclair remarked on 'The Westminster Government's commitment to develop nuclear power as the primary source of renewable energy in the UK and hence the marginal relevance of onshore wind as the platform for renewable energy generation in Wales.'
Hmmnn ... let's try to sift the fact from the fudge here. The Westminster Government's 'commitment' to developing a new nuclear program is questionable. No public money will be made available for the construction of new nuclear power plants. And no nuclear power plant has been built without massive public subsidy. Not much of a commitment, then.
Furthermore, nuclear is not renewable. It's a fossil fuel system. There is something extraodinarily duplicitous or wildly off-target in pretending that nuclear is renewable. It means that the consultant hired (rather late in the day?) by VVASP is either hopelessly muddled or chronically mendacious (and hugely out-of-date: renewables are predicted to overtake nuclear by 2013, so where is this government 'commitment' to the beloved nuclear industry?)
Either way, VVASP have found the landscape equivalent of Mike Stigwood, the maverick noise consultant with an axe to grind whom the district council decided to retain after conversations with the VVASP puppets in the Windfarm Working Party. The WWP was the group which could not be bothered to find out anything at all about windfarms but proved fairly effective at identifying what sort of expert or thing could maybe stop a windfarm planning application in its tracks.
Biased? Bigoted? Utterly out-of-touch with reality? Er ... yeah.
But there is some good emerging from all this. As VVASP's lies are exposed, its hideous ideology and tactics revealed, its concerted attempts at gerrymandering and fixing local democracy are brought to light, and as a steady stream of positive news and developments pours in, utterly demolishing the ricketty case VVASP have been trying to put together, the tide is quite clearly turning. The fools and fascists of VVASP are looking shakier, now. They have relied on unreliable consultants, just as they have relied on unreliable information.
Bring on the windfarm - let's show the people just how many lies VVASP have told!
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
PC OR NOT PC?
Most people, hearing the words 'Parish Council', will probably think of The Vicar of Dibley, and they won't be far wrong. There's something pleasingly reminiscent of Dad's Army and other quaint sitcoms about the workings of the average English Parish Council.
The charmingly amateur approach to local matters demonstrated by so many Parish Councils can easily be subverted by determined individuals. Which is what has happened in the Lenchwick region.
It is fairly standard practice for a Parish Council to organise a Working Party to investigate and report on various issues. It saves time, having a small group looking into an issue and feeding back to the Council, and there is no need to minutes to be taken. But it is unusual for such a Working Party to demand upfront payments from several Parish Councils for it to carry out its duties.
Where the Windfarm Working Party is concerned, those duties have shifted somewhat. To begin with, the Working Party was sold to the participating Parish Councils as a group tasked with gathering and sharing information both in favour of and against wind farms. This information would help the various Parish Councils prepare for the arrival of the planning application. Their questions would be answered.
That did not happen. The WWP had only been in existence for a few weeks, and was not yet fully funded, when it got into bed with the protest group VVASP.
This came as no surprise to some. Church Lench Parish Council (which established the Windfarm Working Party) was nimby through-and-through. The thugs of VVASP had disrupted so many Parish Council meetings that the real councillors resigned, making way for a Parish Council composed entirely of demented anti-wind farm nincompoops. As one resident remarked, Church Lench now had a 'single-issue parish council'.
In the summer of 2009, the WWP agreed to share VVASP's workload. It granted VVASP the sole right to 'educate' the public on windfarm matters (which was pretty daft, given VVASP's propensity for telling fibs) and offered to concentrate on the noise issues related to the proposed windfarm while VVASP focussed on the visual impact.
So already the WWP had decided, in concert with VVASP, to gather and share information relating to only one aspect of the windfarm - the potential noise issues. Now, with a budget of £4,500, provided by the six participating Parish Councils, the Working Party could afford a great deal of research, input and advice. But, in the event, hardly any of this was spent on investigating the noise issues relating to the windfarm.
Instead, the WWP massively overspent on a solicitor, paying the said brief upwards of £3,000 to submit repeated objections to the windfarm plans on the Working Party's behalf.
So what happened to the noise issue? We'll come back to that.
When the WWP was founded, it was clearly stated (by Norton and Lenchwick Parish Council, among others) that the WWP representatives would report back to the Councils on their findings but would have no input directly into the Councils' reponses to the planning application.
This would make sense. In the course of their extensive research (which never happened), the WWP reps would surely form their own opinions. They could feed back on the activities of the WWP and answer questions from their fellow Parish Councillors, but it would be only sensible if, having told the Councils what they had found out, they then left the room while the Parish Councils decided how to respond to the planning application.
Again, though, this did not happen. All six Parish Councils dutifully submitted the woeful 'critique' of the planning application prepared for the WWP by their solicitor. These submissions all took place within one week, with the Norton and Lenchwick submission arriving at Wychavon District Council on the same day as the solicitor's not-very-good critique arrived.
Far from having no input in the eventual decisions of their respective Parish Councils, the WWP reps appear to have insisted that all the participating Councils submitted the selfsame objection, in the form of the solicitor's 'critique'. It seems highly unlikely that the majority of councillors had even seen that report before it was submitted on their behalf. And the parishioners - those who had demonstrated a marked lack of real interest in the whole windfarm issue - were of course not consulted.
With the six submissions of the same document - plus the solicitor's own submission, which makes seven versions of the same 'critique' submitted in the one week - the WWP threw its cards down on the table. It had failed or refrained from gathering and sharing information and it had pretty much given up on its mission to concentrate on the noise issues. It had simply made sure that all six Parish Councils submitted the same dumb objection, regardless of the facts, public opinion or the views of the actual parish councillors.
It was Church Lench Parish Council which administered the Windfarm Working Party (and had the contract with the solicitor), and so it is Church Lench which is to blame for the fact that the Windfarm Working Party completely failed to stay within its budget. Even though it saved hundreds of pounds by giving up on the whole noise side of things, that just meant that it felt entitled to throw hundreds more at their solicitor - whose bills eventually busted their budget altogether.
The WWP has since demanded more money from the Parish Councils so that it can pay the solicitor to appear and to speak at the Special Development Control Committee meeting to consider the windfarm planning application early next year.
Now, here's the rub - just who, exactly, is solicitor Peter Scott going to be representing at Wychavon planning meeting? The answer, short and simple, is: Church Lench. Because, as a mere Working Party, the WWP surely has no authority whatsoever to hire a solicitor to keep banging on and on about their naff objections to the development before the Development Control Committee. So, even though the WWP - or rather, Church Lench Parish Council - proved singularly inept at managing its own budget, the deranged nookies of Church Lench have now insisted that EVERYBODY ELSE should pay for a solicitor to represent them at the meeting of the Wychavon planning committee.
All this money - the £4,500 that was misappropriated from the Parish Councils and then misspent - along with the additional £250 or so donated by Parish Councils, is precept money. It is tax-payers' money granted to Parish Councils for the maintenance of local services. It is public money - OUR money - which is being misused to pay for Church Lench's dimwitted objections to a perfectly sensible scheme.
The Windfarm Working Party is simply a blind. It is Church Lench Parish Council (proprietor: VVASP) seeking to impose its views on the surrounding Parish Councils and making sure that everybody in the area jumps to their tune.
The reason why the WWP gave up on its mission to investigate the noise impact of the windfarm isn't too difficult to find. After a meeting between representatives of the WWP and the Head of Environmental Services at Wychavon, the District Council took the odd decision to hire a very biased noise consultant.
From the point-of-view of the WWP (which is also Church Lench Parish Council, which is also VVASP) this decision, taken by officers at Wychavon DC, absolved them of the need to worry about noise issues. The District Council had taken care of that for them. So they could now throw all our money at a solicitor - and then some more.
It should be abundantly evident to anybody with a functioning brain cell and a basic sense of right and wrong that the Windfarm Working Party has been a flagrant abuse of local democracy. It was created by a ludicrously biased Parish Council with the sole purpose of suborning the surrounding Parish Councils and spending their money (our money) on fighting the windfarm by any means necessary. Absolutely no genuine information was gathered and shared - the morons didn't even consider visiting an operational windfarm!!
Even when the WWP had agreed with their bosom pals in VVASP on who was going to do what, the Working Party was able to renege on that arrangement because it had tricked Wychavon into hiring a noise consultant who (apart from having no real qualifications) is known to be fanatically anti-windfarms, who repeatedly cites evidence that no one has ever seen and who routinely objects to and finds fault with every aspect of a windfarm planning application.
So the WWP had managed to save some money by getting somebody else (Wychavon) to spend public money on its fraudulent enterprise. But rather than return the money it had saved to the participating Parish Councils, the WWP gaily overspent on paying a solicitor to come up with as many objections as he could think of. And to warn off any local resident who expressed suspicions about the way the WWP was trampling over everything that was democratic and decent in the area.
Finally, even though its work is theoretically done, the WWP is paying for the same solicitor to represent the nimby nutters of Church Lench Parish Council at the meeting of the Development Control Committee. This is not what Working Parties do. It is a blatant abuse of public money by a dishonest, deluded minority.
The Parish Councillors of the area are at fault here for failing to insist that proper controls be exercised over a Working Party that was obviously partisan and politically motivated. A large amount of our money has been wasted, overspent, improperly accounted for, misappropriated and misused, all for the sake of a few nimbies. And, even though they had no authority to intervene in the decisions of their Parish Councils, the berks of the WWP made sure that all six Councils submitted the same objection, when the majority of residents in the area have never expressed opposition to the windfarm plans.
Isn't it about time that somebody, somewhere, woke up to this outrageous misbehaviour and taught the sick and evil-minded nimbies of Church Lench a lesson in democracy and proper conduct?
The charmingly amateur approach to local matters demonstrated by so many Parish Councils can easily be subverted by determined individuals. Which is what has happened in the Lenchwick region.
It is fairly standard practice for a Parish Council to organise a Working Party to investigate and report on various issues. It saves time, having a small group looking into an issue and feeding back to the Council, and there is no need to minutes to be taken. But it is unusual for such a Working Party to demand upfront payments from several Parish Councils for it to carry out its duties.
Where the Windfarm Working Party is concerned, those duties have shifted somewhat. To begin with, the Working Party was sold to the participating Parish Councils as a group tasked with gathering and sharing information both in favour of and against wind farms. This information would help the various Parish Councils prepare for the arrival of the planning application. Their questions would be answered.
That did not happen. The WWP had only been in existence for a few weeks, and was not yet fully funded, when it got into bed with the protest group VVASP.
This came as no surprise to some. Church Lench Parish Council (which established the Windfarm Working Party) was nimby through-and-through. The thugs of VVASP had disrupted so many Parish Council meetings that the real councillors resigned, making way for a Parish Council composed entirely of demented anti-wind farm nincompoops. As one resident remarked, Church Lench now had a 'single-issue parish council'.
In the summer of 2009, the WWP agreed to share VVASP's workload. It granted VVASP the sole right to 'educate' the public on windfarm matters (which was pretty daft, given VVASP's propensity for telling fibs) and offered to concentrate on the noise issues related to the proposed windfarm while VVASP focussed on the visual impact.
So already the WWP had decided, in concert with VVASP, to gather and share information relating to only one aspect of the windfarm - the potential noise issues. Now, with a budget of £4,500, provided by the six participating Parish Councils, the Working Party could afford a great deal of research, input and advice. But, in the event, hardly any of this was spent on investigating the noise issues relating to the windfarm.
Instead, the WWP massively overspent on a solicitor, paying the said brief upwards of £3,000 to submit repeated objections to the windfarm plans on the Working Party's behalf.
So what happened to the noise issue? We'll come back to that.
When the WWP was founded, it was clearly stated (by Norton and Lenchwick Parish Council, among others) that the WWP representatives would report back to the Councils on their findings but would have no input directly into the Councils' reponses to the planning application.
This would make sense. In the course of their extensive research (which never happened), the WWP reps would surely form their own opinions. They could feed back on the activities of the WWP and answer questions from their fellow Parish Councillors, but it would be only sensible if, having told the Councils what they had found out, they then left the room while the Parish Councils decided how to respond to the planning application.
Again, though, this did not happen. All six Parish Councils dutifully submitted the woeful 'critique' of the planning application prepared for the WWP by their solicitor. These submissions all took place within one week, with the Norton and Lenchwick submission arriving at Wychavon District Council on the same day as the solicitor's not-very-good critique arrived.
Far from having no input in the eventual decisions of their respective Parish Councils, the WWP reps appear to have insisted that all the participating Councils submitted the selfsame objection, in the form of the solicitor's 'critique'. It seems highly unlikely that the majority of councillors had even seen that report before it was submitted on their behalf. And the parishioners - those who had demonstrated a marked lack of real interest in the whole windfarm issue - were of course not consulted.
With the six submissions of the same document - plus the solicitor's own submission, which makes seven versions of the same 'critique' submitted in the one week - the WWP threw its cards down on the table. It had failed or refrained from gathering and sharing information and it had pretty much given up on its mission to concentrate on the noise issues. It had simply made sure that all six Parish Councils submitted the same dumb objection, regardless of the facts, public opinion or the views of the actual parish councillors.
It was Church Lench Parish Council which administered the Windfarm Working Party (and had the contract with the solicitor), and so it is Church Lench which is to blame for the fact that the Windfarm Working Party completely failed to stay within its budget. Even though it saved hundreds of pounds by giving up on the whole noise side of things, that just meant that it felt entitled to throw hundreds more at their solicitor - whose bills eventually busted their budget altogether.
The WWP has since demanded more money from the Parish Councils so that it can pay the solicitor to appear and to speak at the Special Development Control Committee meeting to consider the windfarm planning application early next year.
Now, here's the rub - just who, exactly, is solicitor Peter Scott going to be representing at Wychavon planning meeting? The answer, short and simple, is: Church Lench. Because, as a mere Working Party, the WWP surely has no authority whatsoever to hire a solicitor to keep banging on and on about their naff objections to the development before the Development Control Committee. So, even though the WWP - or rather, Church Lench Parish Council - proved singularly inept at managing its own budget, the deranged nookies of Church Lench have now insisted that EVERYBODY ELSE should pay for a solicitor to represent them at the meeting of the Wychavon planning committee.
All this money - the £4,500 that was misappropriated from the Parish Councils and then misspent - along with the additional £250 or so donated by Parish Councils, is precept money. It is tax-payers' money granted to Parish Councils for the maintenance of local services. It is public money - OUR money - which is being misused to pay for Church Lench's dimwitted objections to a perfectly sensible scheme.
The Windfarm Working Party is simply a blind. It is Church Lench Parish Council (proprietor: VVASP) seeking to impose its views on the surrounding Parish Councils and making sure that everybody in the area jumps to their tune.
The reason why the WWP gave up on its mission to investigate the noise impact of the windfarm isn't too difficult to find. After a meeting between representatives of the WWP and the Head of Environmental Services at Wychavon, the District Council took the odd decision to hire a very biased noise consultant.
From the point-of-view of the WWP (which is also Church Lench Parish Council, which is also VVASP) this decision, taken by officers at Wychavon DC, absolved them of the need to worry about noise issues. The District Council had taken care of that for them. So they could now throw all our money at a solicitor - and then some more.
It should be abundantly evident to anybody with a functioning brain cell and a basic sense of right and wrong that the Windfarm Working Party has been a flagrant abuse of local democracy. It was created by a ludicrously biased Parish Council with the sole purpose of suborning the surrounding Parish Councils and spending their money (our money) on fighting the windfarm by any means necessary. Absolutely no genuine information was gathered and shared - the morons didn't even consider visiting an operational windfarm!!
Even when the WWP had agreed with their bosom pals in VVASP on who was going to do what, the Working Party was able to renege on that arrangement because it had tricked Wychavon into hiring a noise consultant who (apart from having no real qualifications) is known to be fanatically anti-windfarms, who repeatedly cites evidence that no one has ever seen and who routinely objects to and finds fault with every aspect of a windfarm planning application.
So the WWP had managed to save some money by getting somebody else (Wychavon) to spend public money on its fraudulent enterprise. But rather than return the money it had saved to the participating Parish Councils, the WWP gaily overspent on paying a solicitor to come up with as many objections as he could think of. And to warn off any local resident who expressed suspicions about the way the WWP was trampling over everything that was democratic and decent in the area.
Finally, even though its work is theoretically done, the WWP is paying for the same solicitor to represent the nimby nutters of Church Lench Parish Council at the meeting of the Development Control Committee. This is not what Working Parties do. It is a blatant abuse of public money by a dishonest, deluded minority.
The Parish Councillors of the area are at fault here for failing to insist that proper controls be exercised over a Working Party that was obviously partisan and politically motivated. A large amount of our money has been wasted, overspent, improperly accounted for, misappropriated and misused, all for the sake of a few nimbies. And, even though they had no authority to intervene in the decisions of their Parish Councils, the berks of the WWP made sure that all six Councils submitted the same objection, when the majority of residents in the area have never expressed opposition to the windfarm plans.
Isn't it about time that somebody, somewhere, woke up to this outrageous misbehaviour and taught the sick and evil-minded nimbies of Church Lench a lesson in democracy and proper conduct?
Friday, 19 November 2010
ANOTHER FINE MESS
Little wonder that our nookie friends were praying for a Tory government. The previous administration was evidently keen on renewables. So the nimby nutters wanted them out. Besides which, if you take a look at the majority of VVASP you'll quickly see that few of them have ever given a passing thought to the needs of others. A Tory government, they hoped, would throw out all windfarm applications and go crazy for nuclear instead.
Well, whaddya know. The coalition is in a right old pickle.
Peter Luff's dimwitted 2 kilometre Bill is back. This was a bit of posturing that the MP did on VVASP's behalf a while back. Now, under the new government, he's going through the motions again.
Cameron and Clegg are thoroughly committed to renewables. They've seen the figures and they know that we need them. Sadly, though, a few of their more hard-of-thinking backbenchers feel that there might be a few votes in standing up for the kind of nimby madness which has made the Lenchwick area so thoroughly unpleasant recently. They're on a hiding to nothing, of course. Worse, they are actively opposing the very measures (harmless, beneficial) which the UK urgently needs to adopt. It's a thoroughly stupid and silly enterprise that Luff and co. are engaged on.
Much of the problem lies with the Secretary of State for Communities, the Weeble-like Eric Pickles. One of Pickles's first acts was summarily to abolish regional plans. Under the last government, local authorities were required to figure out what they were going to contribute to such big issues as affordable housing and renewable energy. That involved planning, and as everybody knows, planning ahead is a Socialist thing to do.
But Pickles was taken to the High Court over this, and last week the High Court ruled that he had abused his powers. Pickles simply did not have the lawful right to tear up all those regional plans. It was an exceptionally foolish and short-sighted thing to do.
All of this indicates that the Tory party (in particular) simply hasn't got its head on when it comes to the problems that lie ahead. Too many gormless MPs (like the charmless Karen Lumley, MP for Nimby South, and Luff himself, formerly the MP for Nimby South and now MP for the Vile) have been too quick to swallow the nookie line. This is the deranged mindset which claims to be all in favour of renewables (oh yeah?) as long as they can't see them. The loopy way of thinking which insists that renewables don't work and everybody in the world can't abide the things. The liars, basically.
The upper echelons of the coalition government have to make sensible decisions about our energy future - and with Chris Huhne at the helm of Energy and Climate Change all the indicators are that onshore windfarms will play their part. Cameron (whose father-in-law has a windfarm on his estate) and Clegg (whose wife works for a renewables company) know that this is the only feasible way forward.
But then their dull minions try to prove that they've got their fingers on the pulse (of a dead body) by trotting out the tired and meaningless nimby drivel that they were sold by the likes of VVASP. Pickles abuses his power and is made to reinstate the regional plans - which includes regional plans for renewables. Local authorities have been told that their strategies have been reinstated. A common sense approach to housing and energy is back!
It's astonishing, though, how a few not-very-bright MPs can have misread the situation so badly. Surely it's time that Cameron rounded up his sheep, left Pickles stranded on a beach somewhere, and got on with the job of ensuring that Britain has electricity in a few years time.
Isn't that what being Prime Minister is all about? Fighting for Britain, rather than defending a few selfish cretins who couldn't be trusted to tell you what day of the week it was?
Well, whaddya know. The coalition is in a right old pickle.
Peter Luff's dimwitted 2 kilometre Bill is back. This was a bit of posturing that the MP did on VVASP's behalf a while back. Now, under the new government, he's going through the motions again.
Cameron and Clegg are thoroughly committed to renewables. They've seen the figures and they know that we need them. Sadly, though, a few of their more hard-of-thinking backbenchers feel that there might be a few votes in standing up for the kind of nimby madness which has made the Lenchwick area so thoroughly unpleasant recently. They're on a hiding to nothing, of course. Worse, they are actively opposing the very measures (harmless, beneficial) which the UK urgently needs to adopt. It's a thoroughly stupid and silly enterprise that Luff and co. are engaged on.
Much of the problem lies with the Secretary of State for Communities, the Weeble-like Eric Pickles. One of Pickles's first acts was summarily to abolish regional plans. Under the last government, local authorities were required to figure out what they were going to contribute to such big issues as affordable housing and renewable energy. That involved planning, and as everybody knows, planning ahead is a Socialist thing to do.
But Pickles was taken to the High Court over this, and last week the High Court ruled that he had abused his powers. Pickles simply did not have the lawful right to tear up all those regional plans. It was an exceptionally foolish and short-sighted thing to do.
All of this indicates that the Tory party (in particular) simply hasn't got its head on when it comes to the problems that lie ahead. Too many gormless MPs (like the charmless Karen Lumley, MP for Nimby South, and Luff himself, formerly the MP for Nimby South and now MP for the Vile) have been too quick to swallow the nookie line. This is the deranged mindset which claims to be all in favour of renewables (oh yeah?) as long as they can't see them. The loopy way of thinking which insists that renewables don't work and everybody in the world can't abide the things. The liars, basically.
The upper echelons of the coalition government have to make sensible decisions about our energy future - and with Chris Huhne at the helm of Energy and Climate Change all the indicators are that onshore windfarms will play their part. Cameron (whose father-in-law has a windfarm on his estate) and Clegg (whose wife works for a renewables company) know that this is the only feasible way forward.
But then their dull minions try to prove that they've got their fingers on the pulse (of a dead body) by trotting out the tired and meaningless nimby drivel that they were sold by the likes of VVASP. Pickles abuses his power and is made to reinstate the regional plans - which includes regional plans for renewables. Local authorities have been told that their strategies have been reinstated. A common sense approach to housing and energy is back!
It's astonishing, though, how a few not-very-bright MPs can have misread the situation so badly. Surely it's time that Cameron rounded up his sheep, left Pickles stranded on a beach somewhere, and got on with the job of ensuring that Britain has electricity in a few years time.
Isn't that what being Prime Minister is all about? Fighting for Britain, rather than defending a few selfish cretins who couldn't be trusted to tell you what day of the week it was?
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