LETTER: Wind turbines will be a blight on the landscape

At a meeting of Pendle Council’s Development Management Committee, a proposal for the erection of two 34m industrial turbines at Harwes Farm on Great Edge above Colne was approved after being referred to this committee from the Colne and District Committee meeting.

I fear this will now open the floodgates and we must get used to the blight of turbines splattered over our hills, despoiling what has been for so long a beautiful unspoilt habitat for birds and mammals.

This, of course, is all being done in the name of green energy, which in reality is just a cynical way of giving taxpayers’ money to investors in these schemes via huge subsidies paid for by us on ever-increasing energy bills.

Alarmingly, such an important decision as this was heard and voted on by just six councillors attending out of a possible 11, the vote being split, but being decided by the chairman’s casting vote.

These matters are increasingly being taken away from local decision making, as councils are worried about the costs of defending their decisions, should the applicant decide to go to appeal – which is why it was initially referred to the development management committee.

So much for Mr Cameron’s ideas of localism ... where we decide on the things that affect our lives.

NEIL SCHOFIELD

(via email)