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Campaign group launches fundraising effort to fight wind farms and pylons plans

21 Sep 2023 4 minute read
Pic caption: (Kneeling) Jonty Colchester, Chair of CPRW; Sarah Jones, Mayor of Llanwrtyd Wells; Jenny Chryss, Chair of RE-think; Simon Fraser, Member of the “Monty Pylon Jazz Band” and RE-think Committee Member. Other members of the band are behind, along with Kay Coldrick, Chair of Llangammarch Community Council.
Pic by Peter Barnett

A campaign group that opposes plans to build networks of wind farms and pylons across rural Wales has begun fundraising for what it sees as a long battle ahead.

Scores of people filled the Alexandra Hall in Llangammarch Wells in Powys for the launch of RE-think’s fundraising campaign.

In total, more than £2,600 was raised to support the group’s fight against what it calls industrial scale wind farms and associated pylons being proposed across Mid Wales, leading the organisers to declare it a “resounding success.”

RE-think welcomed Jonty Colchester, who chairs CPRW, the countryside charity, as guest speaker. Also present were Sarah Jones, the Mayor of Llanwrtyd Wells and Kay Coldrick, chair of Llangammarch Community Council.

Mr Colchester spoke of the importance of the RE-think campaign, and pledged CPRW’s ongoing support. He described Bute Energy, which is planning up to 16 wind farms plus overhead power lines in Mid Wales, as a “spec developer” which had never built a wind farm but was looking to “play the subsidy system in order to make a quick buck”.

He reminded guests of the centuries of co-operative effort that had gone into creating Mid-Wales’ treasured landscapes, while also referring to the fragility of the social and economic systems that sustain it.

Petition

Both CPRW and RE-think are promoting a petition calling for a temporary moratorium on large-scale onshore wind developments, until the Welsh Government updates its energy policies to reflect the advances of other technologies and includes the full potential of offshore wind.

RE-think chair Jenny Chryss updated guests on the campaign’s progress, and what was likely to follow over the next few months, warning that there must be no let-up in the fight. She urged people to learn as much as possible about the proposals now, so that they could make an informed response to any future planning applications.

Central to the evening was an auction with items donated by local businesses and individuals. These included Wales v France Six Nations rugby tickets, vouchers for meals and spa treatments at a local hotel, a Welsh Overland Safari, and a three-night break at a holiday cottage in Pembrokeshire.

One of the main attractions at the event was the “Monty Pylon Jazz Band,” along with their singer, Becca “Turbine in a Hurricane” O’Hara.

Ms Chryss said: “I can’t thank people enough for the effort they have made. The volunteers who organised, catered, sung, played, washed up, sold tickets and beer, ran the auction and the raffle or simply came along have my heart-felt thanks. So too do all the individuals and businesses who contributed to making the evening such a success.

“It has been so humbling to see how much support there is for our campaign. Many people expect their lives and livelihoods to be ruined if the proposals of Bute Energy to build massive wind farms plus a power line through the area go ahead. And while others might not be directly affected, they, like me, fear the ruination of the ecology, environment and much-loved landscape for miles around.”

The online petition can be found on the CPRW website.

Bute Energy maintains that its intention is to help the Welsh Government meet its carbon reduction commitments, which can only be done if onshore wind is included in an energy strategy.


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Richard 1
Richard 1
1 year ago

and including the full potential of a Severn Barrage which would pay its costs in a few years, make a profit for 250 years, protect Bristol from sea level rise and vastly benefit the ecology of the estuary.

Glen
Glen
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard 1

Tell us how a barrage would  ‘vastly benefit the ecology of the estuary’.
I doubt migratory fish like salmon, eels and shad, all of which are endangered species would benefit.

Silenced!
Silenced!
1 year ago
Reply to  Glen

Fish ladders have been around for decades. They could be accommodated

Ar c'hole brizh
Ar c'hole brizh
1 year ago

The young people are nowhere to be seen on the photograph. No, only that generation who doesn’t want any changes when it comes to its old, selfish and destructive way of life. They just don’t care in which state the planet will be just after they will have gone.

Richard 1
Richard 1
1 year ago

Unkind and unfair! Massive onshore windfarms are an easy hit for investors but are ecologically destructive. We ought to be deploying the full range of renewables, especially those which harness ultra reliable tidal and wave power. A Severn Barrage has other important benefits. What’s your view of that?

hdavies15
hdavies15
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard 1

Young people missing from that photo because they probably had to move away to get work but still appreciate coming home to some untainted countryside. Time we shove up some big turbine towers in the middle of the big cities. They’d soon start asking about alternative technologies. Too far out of sight and out of mind right now.

Silenced!
Silenced!
1 year ago
Reply to  hdavies15

There is a massive one in Slough, visible from KC3’s pile in Windsor. doesn’t seem to bother anyone

Glen
Glen
1 year ago

So you’re in favour of covering the Welsh countryside with ugly pylons and wind turbines for no tangible benefit to the people who live and work there?

Silenced!
Silenced!
1 year ago
Reply to  Glen

Not ugly ones. Pretty ones. Also OBVIOUSLY they wil not cover the WHOLE countryside. That’s ridiculous hyperbole.
The only thing that mattes is tha tthere are tangible benefits to the people of Cymru (one of those being no need for radioactive, polluting nuclear power stations. At this point it’s one or the other since UK gov keeps cr@pping on plans for other innovative generation solutions

Zarah Daniel
Zarah Daniel
1 year ago
Reply to  Glen

No benefit? I’m assuming that the people you speak of want electricity….
Ugly? To whom? Not to me. You aren’t considering the countryside at all. You’ve decided that you think they’re ugly and spoil your pretty view and you don’t care about the benefits they provide to people or the planet – in a child we’d call that a tantrum.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago

A third Menai Bridge should be a ‘multi-tasked’ affair…

Bachgen o Lerpwl
1 year ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

How much will that cost.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago

How the heck should I know !

Bachgen o Lerpwl
1 year ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

You like supporting uncoated concepts. Or even Impractical ones.

Bachgen o Lerpwl
1 year ago

Ah Lerpwl prif ddinas Cymru. Once the gracious home to over 100 Welsh chapels and more Welsh speakers than all the cities of Wales combined.

hdavies15
hdavies15
1 year ago

Not a lot if Lerpwl paid for the water it takes from Llyn Celyn.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago
Reply to  hdavies15

I hate Reach, he can look up MD’s costings himself, I think it has risen three fold since then…

By the way, my journey was only added to by a minute or two. Lovely drive through God’s little acre. It looked like there had been some rain…

hdavies15
hdavies15
1 year ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

Odd splash here and there ? All good stuff keep it stored England may run out of dwr and will come along, not asking just taking, yet again.

Silenced!
Silenced!
1 year ago

Prob about £350-£500m given the turbulence in the narrower parts of the strait

Silenced!
Silenced!
1 year ago
Reply to  Silenced!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a downvote, but that’s sort of the starting cost for a new bridge in 2023. The 2nd Severn crossing cost £330m in 1996. It was a lot longer bridge, but it was 27 years ago and ground conditions were simpler.

I mean you can have a floating pontoon bridge for a lot less if you want, but it will last a year or two and boats won’t be able to pass under it

Philip.bowyer7@gmail.com
1 year ago

I like wind farms. Elegant beautiful industrial design and clean too. No more nuclear. Invest in Sun, waves, water and wind.

Dr John Ball
Dr John Ball
1 year ago

I wonder where you live

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago

Any AFC Wrecsam fans out there, have a look at the Guardian !

Silenced!
Silenced!
1 year ago

Nice to see such a young passionate group campaigning for the future of Cymru, not for narrow self-interest. I mean there is an issue with Cymru being turned into the “battery” of England, but the technology itself is fundamentally sound and if fair accommodation can be made, with significant benefits being realised IN Cymru for energy created here, then I have no issue with it. Yes, “things are not like they were when I was young”, but honestly I quite like the windmills. They are very quiet even when standing right next to them and not entirely unattractive in my… Read more »

Last edited 1 year ago by Silenced!
Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago
Reply to  Silenced!

‘Wheat intolerance’ it’s still about. The propeller blade is a work of art and science…

There’s an old joke about a drowning man demanding God save him, he ignores the floating branch that passes him etc until he cries out “God why have you forsaken me” and God says “I sent the (expletive) branch etc what’s wrong with you man”?

Dr John Ball
Dr John Ball
1 year ago
Reply to  Silenced!

They are very quiet if you’re standing a mile or two away

Silenced!
Silenced!
1 year ago
Reply to  Dr John Ball

I hike a lot. They are very quiet if you are standing right next to them too

Silenced!
Silenced!
1 year ago
Reply to  Silenced!

Downvoted for a factual statement. As you wish. Honestly it’s a gentle whoosh at worst. Usually the wind pushing them is louder.

Bachgen o Lerpwl
1 year ago
Reply to  Silenced!

Facts have no place here. Emotions only please. E.g Wales would be rich beyond its wildest dreams if it was independent. QED.

Silenced!
Silenced!
1 year ago

Richer than we are under England, cerainly

Zarah Daniel
Zarah Daniel
1 year ago

People who live in pretty bits of the countryside are quick to refuse wind-farms, safe in the knowledge that it’s unlikely that anyone is going to build a power-plant next door to them instead. They still want the electricity though, don’t they? I wonder if they’d hate the “ugly” wind turbines if there was a serious chance that, if they refused, they’d get a coal-powered plant instead…..?!?!

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