BROAD SHEEP - MARCH 2020

Letter Dear Editor “Rape of the Fair Country” Having almost managed to untangle the confused, and clearly misunderstood picture of Wales portrayed by Pete Smith in his letter to your last edition, it might be helpful to clarify some of his misconceptions.

The same Welsh communities which were exploited to fuel the industrial Midlands are now expected to sacrifice rural Wales for the growth of the same capitalist-industrialist machine. One form of grime and mire is merely being replaced by another - venture capitalism.

To quote another Pete, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. Once again we are being asked to blandly accept the disputable claim that economic growth requires increased energy generation. Hardly ever do we hear the call to seriously reduce our energy consumption and wastage.

Please don’t fall for old greenwash without thoroughly checking facts first. As long as schemes like Hendy Windfarm are funded by venture capitalism, and the few benefit financially, they can never be accepted as community projects. Remember what happened with the export of Welsh water. Many of us are still working for the Pharaohs.

Agreed, we certainly need to reconsider our management of the land for the benefit of all, but this requires a better understanding of the current land use than “clear felled upland for industrial wool production”. This isn’t the Amazon we’re talking about, and wool production ceased to be profitable decades ago.

As Hendy windfarm was mentioned, it is important to understand exactly what has/has not happened “for whatever reason”, and the reasons are important.

It was refused planning consent by Powys CC and recommended for refusal by an expert Planning Inspector at appeal. The decision was overturned by a minister who admitted that the details were left to advisors, no doubt recruited from the wind industry. The site was never identified as a potential wind site in the AECOM survey in 2018. The erection of the first turbine was rushed, and powered up by diesel generators to qualify for a massive furure payment from the taxpayer, ignoring many planning conditions and using an illegal entrance onto common land which should have been protected. The developers are not members of the industry body Renewable UK and the financial backers were simultaneously brokering a deal with a major Nuclear Energy developer. Under current guidelines the project cannot be classed as sustainable because it interferes with the migration of birds, possibly the biggest starling roost in the UK. How Green is all that?

For the record, rather than engaging in “opposition to the future”, groups like CPRW are actually doing the job that Planning Departments and Natural Resources Wales should be doing to limit the damage caused by poorly regulated development in rural Wales.

Nigel Dodman