Simon Jenkins at The Guardian has just written about the campaign next door in Yorkshire to save Walshaw Moor from the Calderdale Energy Park:

Ed Miliband would let a turbine farm destroy Brontë country. We need net zero, but at what cost?

He sums it up pretty well with this quote:

I cannot think of any British government for half a century that would have dreamed of destroying this place. Yet the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, apparently wants to do so, with the largest onshore windfarm in England, the Calderdale Energy Park. He clearly regards this unique landscape as the perfect spot for 41 giant wind turbines, each no less than 200m tall. Their height would top Blackpool Tower by 40m.

It comes to something when The Guardian is arguing against a wind farm. They must realise that Ed Miliband’s ambitions would have many more areas of the country plastered with them. For them to be even partially effective they need to be in windy areas. There just aren’t that many to go round in the UK which is why we see them being built in remote parts of Scotland where there is no grid infrastructure and few customers. Therefore, onshore wind farms will inevitably damage large parts of our beautiful countryside, destroying our heritage and timeless views forever. The recent Planning and Infrastructure Bill changes will just reinforce this desecration by giving the green light to wind farms on our irreplaceable peat and blanket bog moorland.

As an aside: it’s interesting to see the cynical naming used by the developer, a Saudi Arabian company. So we now have an Energy Park rather than a Wind Farm, makes it all sound very recreational, the sort of place you might have a nice day out at.