Environment and Sustainability Committee
Inquiry into Energy Policy and Planning in Wales

EPP 125 – David Reeves

Dear Sir/Madam,

I understand your committee is to consider the following 2 petitions:

1. No to TAN8 wind farms & high voltage lines spoiling our communities

2. Transport of wind turbines in mid-Wales

so I am writing to voice my objections to the proposed destruction of a beautiful part of our countryside.

To accommodate 600 ft tall turbines in this remote part of Wales, large areas of forest will need to be cleared which will change the character of the landscape and ruin the views created by nature and admired by locals and tourists alike. Carrying out the site construction will involve thousands of heavy vehicle journeys and transporting the 600 - 800 turbines to site will involve hundreds if not thousands of 200 ton loads on totally unsuitable roads. After some 5 years of misery, noise & dirt disrupting the lives of people unfortunate enough to live anywhere near this route, very regular maintenance journeys will be needed (a bit like painting the Forth bridge).

The people who live anywhere near the proposed wind farm, the substation or the route of the disfiguring pylons have chosen to live in quiet, rural locations with stunning views. Now we are faced with part industrialisation and visually obtrusive changes that will not only destroy the reason for living where we do but will also depreciate the value of our property so that moving away becomes a very expensive exercise - if we can find anybody to buy our property! Certainly the 'hum' from the pylons and the health risk identified in the Draper report will make selling a house very difficult.

Another factor to take into consideration is the impact these monstrous structures will have on tourism to mid-Wales and the beautiful nearby Shropshire countryside. I understand tourism to this region brings in £650 million p.a. and, in mid-Wales alone, some 6,500 jobs depend on tourism. If this proposed wind farm and associated pylons only reduces tourism by 20%, that is a very high price to pay - but it's not the Welsh Assembly members who pay it, it's the local residents! Of course it may reduce by 50%, nobody knows and once it's happened it's too late.

So, as an alternative has the Welsh Assembly looked at the initiative between the Stoke-on-Trent council and E:ON? This involves installing solar panels on the roof of both private and public housing stock and, according to the BBC this morning, has been so successful that it is to be extended with the aim of making S-o-T independent of the National Grid. That really is a win/win solution where S-o-T reduce the demand on the grid allowing other customers to use the electricity without more power stations or wind farms having to be built.

Yours sincerely

David Reeves