REGARDING EDF backing down.

When at the planning meeting, I spoke against the proposal by EDF to put 14 giant wind turbines up at Upper Norton Farm, near Bullington Cross, and I made it clear that I objected on several grounds.

A business and Popham airfield could have been forced to shut; vital MoD radar would be dangerously blinded; residents would suffer light flicker and noise; some beautiful countryside would be blighted by day and the night sky would be polluted by navigation lights atop the turbines.

Chilbolton Observatory also objected as the turbines’ existence would make a large wedge of the low horizon unobservable.

In the end all three districts refused planning permission, on a number of grounds.

The news that EDF has backed down and decided not to appeal the planning refusal is not just welcome, it indicates a restoration of a bit of sanity to the renewables gravy train.

Apart from the landowner, who has to make a living, and EDF, which has to make a profit, only members of the Hampshire Renewable Energy Co-Operative (HREC) would have been beneficiaries.

HREC had struck a contract with EDF to allow its members to purchase up to 10 per cent of the energy contract; investing members would then have been paid a good, protected, guaranteed rate of interest.

Only after HREC members had taken their cut would any monies left over have been paid back into the community, and then only to “HREC-approved” projects.

No-one else, other than firms involved in putting them up and maintaining them, would have benefitted, because somewhere there would have needed to be an alternative source of energy; ready to ramp up and meet demand, whenever the wind failed to blow at the right speed. It is not just when there is no wind that turbines fail to turn; they have to be shut down if the wind is too high.

I welcome the government’s proposals to allow communities to decide whether they want wind power stations, and to greatly reduce the inflated price that energy suppliers must pay wind operators.

Sadly for wind crusaders and subsidy troughers alike, (the former for whom I have some respect; the latter for whom I would have, if only they would openly admit that they are in it for financial gain), EDF has confirmed that it is no longer interested, because there is no profit to be had.

I believe that consumers should be encouraged, not coerced. I want enterprises to continue to seek profits for shareholders – just please, not by putting up eyesores in beautiful countryside – and not through enforced subsidies embedded in our energy bills.

And how do we save the planet? Let’s start by finding ways to reduce the pollution generated in countries like China and India – hint: not by bribing them to erect wind turbines.

Tom Thacker, Hampshire County councillor, Whitchurch and Clere Division.