WHEN a contractor applies to build a windfarm the only criteria that council planning departments apply are existing government guidelines and planning law.
No consideration of a financial feasibility is used, but it is our money in the form of large subsidies and the renewable price levy on our electricity bills that will pay for it.
Who polices this money to see that it is used efficiently and not squ
andered among developers intent on making large profits, with little consideration for people who will have to live underneath these large industrial machines? No one.
We don't begrudge a company making an honest buck, the economy depends on it as well as our jobs. But there has to be a balance that protects the public.
The government needs to step in and issue new guidelines designed to protect the people it serves – us. Guidelines from 1993 were put in when turbines were small and need to take into account the massive size of the new generation of turbines now being deployed.
Extensive research from Portugal has found that the low frequency noise emitted by turbines can physically harm people living, or working, near a windfarm.
We need to tell the government change is needed now before irreparable harm is done to towns, villages, countryside and people as well as our wallets.
Write to your MP, sign up on the Downing Street "e" petitions on the PWAG and DATED websites, lobby your local councils and make your friends do the same.
PETER DRIFFIELD
Darrington Road
East Hardwick
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