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Evening Mail , Cumbria, Tuesday April 2, 2002 The Full Story...

Beckett¹s Broadside

BLOT ON THE LANDSCAPE

I SEE the wind farm fanatics are at it again, this time in Wales. The chosen sites for their latest acts of potential vandalism are in theCambrian Mountains which stretch through central Wales.The Cambrian Mountains were once chosen to be the first National Park in Britain and were designated as such by the Countryside Commission in 1972. Sadly, that designation was never confirmed by the government and those with
plenty of sense of profits but none of aesthetics or the preservation of unspoilt landscape have seized upon the opportunity to put forward their repulsive proposals as they cash in on this government's blind devotion to
wind farms as an acceptable form of energy.

It matters not that they are huge polluters through the noise they make, that they destroy the quality of life of those who have the misfortune to live nearby, that they are outrageously inefficient and are total blight on
the landscape.

If the wind farm developers want them they shall have them. Or so it seems. The Cambrian Mountains proposal has been called an act of vandalism equivalent to the Taliban's destruction of the ancient Buddhist statues in
Bamiyan, Afghanistan.

One scheme is for 39 turbines 100 feet high, the other for 165 turbines 400
feet high.

Imagine the effect that would have on Helvellyn or the Langdale Pikes. Yet this is what the people who live in the shadow of these beautiful mountains may have to put up with. A director of the company behind one of the planned developments said there was no evidence that wind farms put off tourists. He is probably right about no evidence but that is only because no one has built farms on such a scale across the Lakes District, the Peak District, Exmoor, or the Scottish HIghlands.

Then he claimed that the development could revitalise the villages in the area.
This was after admitting that the wind farm would create a mere seven local jobs. Is he taking the mickey?
We are blessed with a government hell bent on covering most of the South
East of England with houses. Now we wait to see if they are equally determined to destroy one of the most
beautiful landscapes in the British Isles in the cause of "renewable"
energy.

BY MAIL REPORTER BILL BECKETT