Bozeat Lavendon Oppose Turbines

covering the villages and surrounding communities of:

Bozeat - Harrold - Lavendon - Warrington - Turvey - Easton Maudit

NEWS

(Last updated - Wednesday, May 28, 2008)

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BLOT News

The Campaign to Protect Rural England lends it support to BLOT and our campaign objectives. Their National website is at www.cpre.org.uk and the local Bedfordshire branch at www.cprebeds.org.uk. Extremely useful source of information and guidance on rural issues and concerns.

17/04/2008

Npower have withdrawn their application for Nun Wood saying they are going to redesign it and resubmit in “Late Summer 2008”. They have also appointed a new media PR company  which you may want to take a look at here (we’re not too sure what  to make of the “Crisis and Reputation Management” bit !)

BLOT has issued a press statement here and obviously we will be monitoring what happens next.. Rest assured that we are well aware of how Npower may be playing this and are preparing ourselves for the next round. One thing you may need to keep in mind is that the planning application, if it is received, will almost certainly require a new set of responses - in effect the slate will be wiped clean and we start all over again. So be prepared, it’s not over yet !!!  

14/02/2008

Another Npower development threatens our near neighbours over in the villages and communities close to St Neots. See their website here.

11/01/2008

The recent central government developments have finally started to show a more consistent and achievable vision for the energy requirements of this country and the efforts to tackle emissions and environmental concerns.

For this, I think at last we can say the government has made some good and sound decisions. However, party politics and “Green” dogma still exist - especially over the border in Buckinghamshire with Milton Keynes Council sub planning committee supporting the development at Petsoe End near Olney and the subsequent vote by the full council to (narrowly) uphold this decision.

However, we understand the original meeting, and the subsequent review were and are - how can one say - extremely suspect in both legality and in it’s independent process as a planning application review. At the end of the day, when Councillors line up on Central government party lines to completely ignore local people, councils and parish objections, then you can only really start to sympathise with the post code lottery that living just over the county border brings. The Green Taliban appear to have a huge influence with MK Council and one can only wonder what right “Friends of the Earth” have in calling themselves by that name. “Friends in High Places”, “Friends with Influence” or “Friends that’ll say Anything for Money” could be a group of people that would be more appropriate one thinks.

The local campaign group BLEW have vowed to call for a judicial review over the messy story with MK Council - ones hopes they will succeed because if they fail, it is all of us in this local community that will see the beautiful Ouse Valley destroyed and some of the prettiest villages in our area - Olney, Emberton, Petsoe, Clifton Reynes, Newton Blossomville - all will be faced with a monstrous view of seven 410 foot wind turbines (as will all of as that travel on the A509 in that direction) for the most part struggling to turn in the little wind that is available. All of us will be faced with yet another constant reminder of the stupidity and sheer arrogance of a council that wants to be seen to be green but preferably several miles away in Someone Else's Back Yard !

(This breed of SEBY’s tend to be the most hypocritical as strangely enough, it’s always someone else that has to bare the brunt of their self righteous views and beliefs).         

If they succeed, where no amount of local objection, logic, fact and change in government tack dissuades them, then surely the people in these communities will feel they will have no choice but to take more direct action to safeguard the things that are most precious to them.

Keep up to date with what’s happened and what’s going on here and the BLEW site here.

** Please Note ***

Our views and opinions on the Petsoe End wind farm development give us cause for concern for those elements of the Nun Wood wind farm that fall into the area covered by Milton Keynes Council (but fortunately make up the lowest number in our tri-county configuration).

From what we have seen of both Bedfordshire and Wellingborough Councils, the process and due diligence displayed by them gives us more confidence in at least a fair debate and review of the planning application for Nun Wood without noticeable political or “green” environmentalist influence or pressure.

12/06/2007

The planning application for Podington Airfield Wind farm has been heard by Bedford Borough Council on Monday 11th June and has been turned down. This is wonderful news for Podington, Hinwick, Bozeat and all the surrounding villages and communities in our area and of course, the campaign team in CLOWD.

Now, whether the developers decide to appeal is yet to be seen, but recent trends would indicate that for onshore developments, especially in this area, then any appeal would not be successful either. The general public are much more aware of the TRUE facts behind these developments and the real and viable alternatives. The writing may be on the wall, but as long as there is easy money to be made from throwaway government subsidies, then the cynical excuse that this is all being done to “save the planet” will continue.

 

General & Industry News

27/05/2008

Home is Unsaleable

A couple who have been forced out of their home by wind turbine noise have found out their house is unsaleable.

Jane and Julian Davis moved out of their Deeping St Nicholas home in Christmas 2006 after months of sleepless nights due to what they believe is noise and vibration from wind turbines, which are around 900m from their property.

They have long believed it has no value, and their fears have now been proved justified, after estate agents Munton and Russell refused to market the property at Grays Farm.

And Npower used this as a reference site for Nun Wood (many of our properties are within the 900m range)

Full article here

11/01/2008

Well, in recent weeks we have seen the government commit themselves to developing (or at least committing the nergy companies to developing) 7,000 OFFSHORE Wind Turbines by 2020 (see here). With this we agree and applaud the governments ability to finally get off the fence and admit that OFFSHORE wind turbines are the only suitable way for this form of renewable energy to have any meaningful effect.

Now though, we also have their commitment to NUCLEAR (see here) again with target dates to get the first ones online by 2020. It is now so utterly incomprehensible and beggars belief that they will still condone the mass destruction of on-shore sites such as those in our locality, simply one assumes because they haven’t got the guts to admit to themselves, and the subsidy money grabbing energy companies who want to cash in on YOUR money before the trough is removed for good (and have you noticed how much attention is being paid to these new Offshore and Nuclear options being self funding and self supporting !!!).

On-shore wind farm developments should be stopped NOW as to continue gives a real bitter taste that it has come to no more than an attack of spite, dogma and revenge on rural middle class communities.

15/10/2007

An article by Christopher Booker in the Telegraph hits the nail on the head !!

The article (here) sums up the current gross target and obscene subsidy driven situation this government has now got itself into.

It’s bad enough that we are being blighted by these turbine developments, but it is costing £BILLIONS in subsidies (to often foreign shareholder companies) and doing NOTHING to address the real environmental and energy supply situation. Even worse is that it’s YOU that are paying for it through taxes and higher electricity costs. How long do we allow such obscenities to continue?

(if the article is no longer online, a copy is available here)

04/09/2007

Costing the Earth....

You bet - a recent BBC Radio 4 programme investigated the true and not so true facts about windfarms and how they may indeed, be “costing the earth”

You may visit the BBC Radio 4 website here and listen to the programme for yourself (30 minutes duration).

23/05/2007

Government at last publishes the Energy White Paper.

It may have taken a long time, may be full of hedge sitting and ambiguous statements but the reading between the lines is clear. Onshore windfarms are NOT  going to solve our energy or climate problems.

Download the report from the DTI here.

10/12/2006

The Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) have just issued a press statement and a substantial report which concludes what we have all believed from the beginning - that Onshore wind turbines do not deliver .... See our “Useful Information” page here for more details on the REF and their report or the REF Press release here.

17/10/2006

Ok, let’s figure this one out .. Npower own the fossil fuel power station at Didcot in Oxfordshire (one of the largest in the UK and also one of the largest producers of CO2). So, good for them, they’ve looked at introducing a mix of Biomass fuels (straw etc) and have therefore invested in a “add-on” plant costing them a relatively small sum of £3.5 million yet it reduces the emissions, they claim, by a whopping 700,000 tonnes of CO2  a year (here and here). Good, about time.

So what are they claiming that Nun Wood “offsets” (where “offset” is not a reduction of any sort, merely a mathematical shifting of numbers) - the “valuable contribution” they claim is a pathetic average of 62,500 tonnes of CO2 a year - not even 1/10 of what they’ve done simply by cleaning up their act at Didcot - so if at a stroke they can save the real production of 700,000 tonnes of CO2 (which would equate to 11 Nun Wood developments), just what is the other reason for building these monstrous wind factories ??? (Answers on the back of a government subsidy claim form please).