CEIRIOG VALLEY ACTION GROUP
Residents of the Ceiriog Valley united against proposals to blight one of North Wales’ most beautiful rural landscapes with industrial wind turbines
Release
date: Thursday July 4th 2002
Ceiriog
Valley unites
against
‘giant turbines’
RESIDENTS of the Ceiriog Valley demonstrated last night that they are overwhelmingly united against a proposal to build the biggest wind turbines in the country on the hills above Glyn Ceiriog.
In one of the biggest public turnouts seen in the Valley for years, more than 500 people crammed into the Oliver Jones Memorial Hall at Dolywern to give unanimous support to a drive to stop one of North Wales most scenic beauty spots being turned into a ‘Turbine Alley’.
After hearing Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales spokesman Geoffrey Sinclair describe how massive 300ft turbines were now needed to claw for wind in an area that was ‘certainly not the most windy in Wales’, residents – and representatives of political parties – voiced passionate and unanimous support for the Ceiriog Valley Action Group’s burgeoning ‘No’ campaign.
Not a single voice in support of the wind turbine proposal was heard during the meeting which lasted more than two hours.
From the floor of a hall that was packed to standing, speaker after speaker denounced the proposal by local farmer Gareth Roberts, backed by National Wind Power, to erect a cluster of three 300-ft turbines at Cefn Coed, Glyn Ceiriog, which if allowed, is expected to trigger a rush of further applications backed by National Wind Power.
Wrexham County Borough Council will decide on July 29 – but residents who were originally given only days to make their views known after the Council’s public notices were advertised late, have only until Monday (July 8) to send in official objections. The Council has already received almost 700 written letters of protest, but after last night’s meeting, many more are expected.
Ceiriog Valley Action Group Chairman Kyron Lawford declared after the meeting: “The people of this Valley have tonight sent out the clearest, most
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resolute message to the Council, and to those who we know are waiting in the wings with further turbine applications already drafted and ready to submit.
“We are not going to stand idly by and allow one of this country’s most beautiful, unspoilt landscapes to become a breeding ground for the biggest wind turbines Wales has ever seen.
“A great many of the people who live in this Valley are here because it is a place of such unspoilt beauty and tranquility. To allow these giant turbines into such an environment would completely destroy the fabric of people’s lives. Our fight has taken off tonight, and let no-one be in doubt that we have the will and the appetite to take it all the way.”
A measure of the public opinion against turbines in the Ceiriog Valley was demonstrated by residents as they left the meeting. They contributed more than £1,000 to a bucket collection for funds to continue the campaign, a gesture which CVAG Fundraiser Merle Hunt described as “just superb. People have put their money where their hearts are.”
Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales spokesman Geoffrey Sinclair who has been involved in 80 previous wind turbine applications told the meeting: “The issue contains all the classic ingredients of environmental conflict.
“This is not just a few wicked farmers trying to make a bit on the side, or even a few multinational corporations trying to move in and exploit a commercial opportunity. It stems from a Government response to climate changes, and moves towards the adoption of renewable energy sources.”
Wind turbines he said were not the only source of renewable energy – but aided by what he described as “successive generations of subsidy” they had become “a uniquely marketable symbol of the green movement - but they now confront us is such a conspicuous way” he said.
The UK Government had signed up to increase its share of renewable energy sources to 10 per cent by 2010, and to 20 per cent by 2020, he explained. “The CPRW accepts it is necessary to make realistic attempts to reach that target – but it’s how it is done that is the issue.
We would prefer to see a slower and more considered approach to the 2010 target” he said, “for it is likely that forms of renewable energy more efficient and more socially acceptable than turbines will be developed in the near future.”
The Ceiriog Valley was “not the most windy area in Wales, but in order to maximise the available wind in such areas, turbines were “being poked higher and higher into the sky.
“We have here a proposal for turbines of a size quite unprecedented in Wales” he said – and he compared the application to build 300ft turbines in the Ceiriog Valley, with the existing development of 103 turbines at Llandinam
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in Powys, where the turbines were 140ft high – less than half the height of those in the Glyn Ceiriog proposal.
“We have now developed turbines of an immense size. Each year they are being built bigger and bigger – and so they have become physically and obtrusively more visible over a wider area.”
The nearest that any other turbine development came to the Ceiriog Valley proposals, was one near Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthen, where three 250ft turbines had been erected, but said Mr.Sinclair: “They have startled the wits out of local people, many of whom never objected to them, because they didn’t realise what was coming up. They do now – and they wish they had objected when they had the chance.
“Perhaps they’re not as ‘green’ as we thought they were, for while they do produce unpollutable energy, what use is that if they go to sites where they cause enormous public conflict?
“It doesn’t seem to make much sense to cure one environmental problem, by creating another.”
The Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales he said was pressing Wrexham County Borough Council to insist that the Ceiriog Valley turbines application is accompanied by a full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which honestly addresses the welter of environmental concerns raised by the application.
Although he agreed the ‘indicative threshold’ for the requirement of an EIA was five turbines and/or 5 megawatts of electricity, “it is for the professional Planning Officer to exercise his judgement whether an Environmental Impact Assessment is required.
The applicants he said had tried to pressurise Wrexham County Borough Council into giving a ‘screening’ opinion that a full Environmental Impact Assessment wasn’t necessary.
But said Mr.Sinclair: “Having been involved in 80 wind turbine applications and having given evidence at 21 wind turbine public enquiries, I can tell you no planning authority has ever concluded that a development of this size should not require an EIA.
Wrexham Council he said would be technically in breach of government regulations if it continued to process the Cefn Coed turbines application without adequately addressing the issues of location, scale and local sensitivity – and the Cefn Coed application did contain “some serious omissions” – for example on the issue of turbine noise in the Valley environment.
“They have not carried out detailed background surveys on noise levels, and the regulations require that they do - that has to be done” he said. Turbine
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noise isn’t the sort that drives you deaf, but the sort that drives you mad. It’s persistent, and once its there, you have to live with it.
“You shouldn’t be blackmailed by people who say you should accept every wind turbine that’s proposed – and you shouldn’t be browbeaten by those who accuse you of being NIMBY (‘Not in my back yard’). The Ceiriog Valley’s ‘back yard’ he suggested, was sufficiently special as to warrant protecting.
Ceiriog Valley Action Group Chairman Kyron Lawford painted a compelling cameo of Valley life when he spoke of the existing noises of the countryside. “You know how it is – sound is amplified in a valley – you can hear people calling each other on the other side of the valley, you can hear a farmer calling his dog – it’s a natural sound, a countryside sound. You’re in an echo chamber. But if these turbines come, all you’ll hear is the thud, thud, thud, thud of the propeller blades beating the air.
“The proposers say they’ll reach an agreement over noise levels – but how can they do that when they haven’t even surveyed what the noise levels would be?”
The applicants case was riddled with ambiguity and misrepresentation, he said – and he highlighted the instance in which consultants acting for the turbine application claimed to have explained their case to NTL, the owners of a 120ft radiocommunciations mast on the hills above Pontfadog. But after making exhaustive enquiries, Ceiriog Valley Action Group discovered that NTL had in fact never even been contacted by the applicants.
Mary Robinson, local area Countryside Secretary of the Ramblers Association which believes turbine developments have already destroyed enough country environments, told the meeting: “Wales has been targeted for wind energy development – but to devastate some of our most beautiful skylines is to devastate the Welsh heritage – and that we are determined to resist.”
Another Valley resident who formerly lived in Denmark testified how house prices in that country had dipped by between 25 and 30 per cent in areas where wind turbines had been sited “and it’s getting worse” he said, “because the turbines are getting bigger and bigger.”
Residents were urged to back up their formal letters of objection to Wrexham Council Planning Officer Matthew Davies, with copies to Welsh Assembly Minister for the Environment Sue Essex, Dr.John Marek, former Wrexham MP and now Deputy Presiding Officer at the Welsh Assembly, Plaid Cymru Assembly Member Janet Ryder, and Clwyd South MP Martyn Jones.
Editors: For further information, please contact CVAG Chairman Kyron Lawford on 01691-718756, Secretary Chris Futcher on 01691-718602, or Press Officer David Wilcock on 01691-718351.