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Nottingham's first proposed wind farms need support.

Beth | 26.10.2006 11:57 | Ecology

Nottingham's first possible wind farms need your help.

ACT NOW & JOIN US.

On Saturday 28th October at 12pm
Mansfield, Near McDonalds on the High Street.

Supporters of the wind farms will be asking members of the public to sign letters of support. Please help to get letters signed and show Newark and Sherwood council the strength of feeling FOR windfarms.

The council's decision will most probably be made in the first week of November on these 2 proposed wind farm sites.

Wind farm 1.
The Lindhurst Wind farm:
A proposal for 5 turbines on land South of Mansfield by Npower to provide electricity for 4,700 - 5,100 homes.
 http://www.npower-renewables.com/lindhurst/index.asp


Wind farm 2.
The Eakring Wind farm:
A proposal for 7 turbines on a former colliery site and farmland by Harworth Power Ltd and Eakring Farming Ltd to provide electricity for 17% of Newark and Sherwood.
 http://planning.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/pp/Gold/ViewGold.asp?ID=3469


Proposals for new wind farms and sites take years of research and evaluation, we cannot ignore these two potential sites. Climate change is now far too great a threat to ignore. The U.K is shamefully Europe's second largest emitter of Greenhouse gases and is way behind most other E.U countries in providing renewable energy (U.K = 2.4%, Sweden = 26% and aiming for oil free existence).

Of course nobody is saying that we can obtain all of our energy needs from wind turbines but with energy efficiency, micro generation, wave, tidal, solar and biomass we can at least go some way towards a clean, renewable, fossil and nuclear free future.

Write to the local council:
Cllr Keith Shepherd  keith.sheppard@nsdc.info
Cllr Roger Blaney  rogerblaney@yahoo.co.uk
Cllr Gordon Brooks  gordonbrooksat39@yahoo.co.uk
Cllr Leonard Wilkes  leonard.wilkes@newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk
Cllr Allen Tift  allen.tift@newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk
Cllr Alan Hannaford  alan.hannaford@nsdc.info
Cllr Kevan Wakefield  wakefieldk@btopenworld.com
Cllr Leonard Sprigg  leonard.sprigg@nsdc.info
Cllr Geoffrey Merry  geoff_merry@yahoo.co.uk
Cllr Eileen Rodgers  eileen.rodgers@btopenworld.com

Join:
 http://www.se-alliance.org.uk/
 http://www.yes2wind.com/


The opposition:
 http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/eakringbirds/windturbines.htm
 http://www.eakring.org/
We have written to Eakring Turbine Action Group in order to gain more information on some of their claims, we await a reply (particularly on the claim that 81% of Eakring residents say 'No' to the proposed wind farm - have they really polled all 6,400 residents of Eakring????).

Listen to the previous BBC Groundswell debate:
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2006/02/10/wind_farm_groundswell_feature.shtml

Beth

Additions

Share with us your claims.

06.11.2006 13:20

Well Ted, why don't you share with us and substantiate your claims so that everyone can see them. Don't just save them for yourself. How many people did you poll? How noisy is a modern day turbine? How will it cause division in the local community? I wasn't aware anyone had been killed by a turbine - are they really as dangerous as you make out? Please tell us.

As a reminder ETAG'S claims:

81% of villagers polled were against the wind farm development.

Eakring Turbine Action Group believes that the wind farm will:

* Bring no benefit to our local community

* Detract from the natural scale and character of our local environment

* Endanger people living nearby and those visiting the local countryside

* Destroy our quality of life with noise, light flicker and shadows

* Create division among our local community

* Cause economic disadvantage through reduced property values
in the village and surrounding area

Windy Miller


Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Proposed Windfarm in Eakring & Bilsthorpe

03.11.2006 19:10

Your website claims that you have written to Eakring Turbine Action Group to ask for information on our objection to the Windfarm proposed between the villages of Eakring & Bilsthorpe - we have received no such letter ! I am a member of greenpeace and consider myself to be a 'green' campaigner, however this location has been selected on the basis of economics, private ownership and the pusuit of profit at any cost to the environment. Please I urge you to explore the damage which will be caused to the environment in this case before you canvass support from well intentioned green supporters who have no knowledge of the application, the area being considered or the impacts on the local environment. We must get support for truly renewable schemes but we will not achieve it if we canvass support for all schemes whatever the cost. We invite you to consider this and to contact us for more information.

ETAG - Eakring Turbine Action Group
mail e-mail: ted@aspectus-group.co.uk


Embrace the wind.

05.11.2006 21:45

I am all in favour of community owned wind turbine projects so if the above poster and the ETAG action group are not in favour of utility companies providing energy then why aren't you proposing some community led renewable energy schemes in Eakring?? It does sound like a fantastic idea and is certainly workable as the village next to yours is proposing to do this. Perhaps you could take your proposals to Newark and Sherwood Council. It is my understanding that the partnership will involve EAKRING Farming Ltd (the name suggests it is a local company!!!) and as you say the company will be making a profit, well I don't know anyone that sets up a business in order to make a loss. It is certainly good news that renewable energy is profitable because many of the anti-wind groups claim that wind farms are heavily subidised by the government (certainly not to the extent of the nuclear industry I might add).

4 of the turbines will be positioned on the old Bilsthorpe colliery Brownfield site that looks suitable to me. Incidentally if you look at the reports commissioned by NIREX in the 1980's the proposals for nuclear waste storage at old collieries was very favourable so you may have something bigger to fight in the future.

As usual the main arguments against the wind farm is the house price argument, birds (particularly the nightjars - that are more likely to be affected by a road than a wind farm) and human health - none of these claims have been substantiated.

Have you actually ever been to a modern wind farm?

If ETAG were true conservationists then why did they have a 'balloon release' last weekend?? Most of these balloons end up floating off into the sea and get eaten by turtles mistaking them for jellyfish.

For your information I have looked at the proposed site, listened to the arguments and read all the surveys done for this site.

Jack