PAID TO PEDAL

PLANS are being discussed to give commuters who cycle to work a financial incentive.

Several European countries already reward cyclists for their commutes to work, with the Netherlands paying out 21 cents per kilometre cycled. In France people who give up four wheels for two can ‘earn’ up to €800 a year. The government is looking at introducing a similar scheme in Spain.

By Alex Trelinski Lagoon’s

lations which reduced CO2 emissions by 3,000 tons. This move can be seen as a boost to advocates of rooftop and brown field solar installations.

Critics of plans for mega solar farms covering thousands of hectares of virgin countryside in Valencia and Andalucia have called for them to be toned down in favour of alternative installations.

In a blow to campaigners, a proposal for a 100-hectare solar plant to be developed in Ronda, Cañete La Real and Cuevas del Becerro has been given the tick of approval by the Junta de Andalucia. At first the project was rejected, but Cobra, which is behind the plans, revised the proposal so that overhead power lines be buried instead to ‘reduce the visual impact of the plant’. It would be located in Majadas de San Antonio and have a power output of 500 wattpeak (wp).