Blog: An ill wind blowing the way of my beloved town
My breakfast is becoming hard to swallow, my eggs are going down like a pair of bullets, writes blogger Emma Suddaby. And the cause of my indigestion? Windfarms.
Quite appropriate really after all the National Grid could probably keep the turbine blades blowing for quite some time purely using the nervous flatulence their decision to route the windfarms via Cefn Coch has caused local people to suffer.
We’ve all been waiting with baited breath to hear which route power bosses would choose to link England’s national power network to the dratted windfarms about to blight our beautiful landscape sometime soon.
For me personally, the decision to route the power lines through the Llansantfraid, Meifod valley, culminating in Cefn Coch near Llanfair Caereinion (my nearest town), is just about as bad as it can be.
Not only is the Meifod Valley one of my favourite places in the world - and if you haven’t been there yet, go now, before it is utterly ruined by the pylons – but also I just weep for what this will mean for Llanfair Caereinion, officially the smallest town in Wales.
Llanfair has already suffered much at the hands of progress. When I first moved to the area, I got chatting to an old soak just tumbling out of the many pubs in the town. Sadly, the pubs seem to be the only businesses still able to scratch a living here which doesn’t say much for the morale of local people.
My slightly sozzled new friend told me what the town used to be like, a bustling, busy centre for the many farms, homes and villages strung out across the lonely hills, jam-packed with shops, cafes and the like. It even had electricity long before most of England and way before the National Grid even knew it existed, produced by harnessing the power of the river and run by a small group of forward thinking locals.
But today, Llanfair is a very different place from that once-promising local hub. It still has a strong and committed community, determined to drag it clear of the stamping boot of progress, and it’s still beautiful in a crookedy, storey-book way.
But the shops have nearly all shut, silenced forever by the march of the superstores and the crookedy old streets are clogged up with the cars we’re busy using to take our custom elsewhere.
And now our town is to become a sideshow to the Cefn Coch electricity hub, what will that mean for it’s future? How long will the streets remain storey-book and crookedy when they have pantechnicans hauling heavy equipment up to Cefn Coch day and night?
How many tourists will pay good money to come up to the hills to watch turbines chasing all the wildlife away? I just hope those responsible remember well that grants will soon run out but our landscape will be ruined forever.
Comments for: "Blog: An ill wind blowing the way of my beloved town"
Simon
Is that a cooked breakfast? Made with electricity from nuclearm coal or imported gas?
Perhaps you would prefer to live next to an open cast coal mine or a nuclear power station - both of which are far more harmful and considerably less pleasing to the eye.
Everyone likes progress when it means faster broadband or improved transport links (which means people travel further to work and to do their shopping) but far too many people turn NIMBY over steps to implement renewal energy generation.
The change in small towns and villages is often wrought by people who move in; some of it is good, some of it not so good. And bear in mind that in days gone by the 'old soak' would have jumped in his Land Rover to drive home totally sozzled. I grew up in Llanidloes, I remember small town life before and after the appearance of wind turbines. The community is made by the people and the NIMBY moaners like you with your chocolate-box fantasy of rural life will not help it flourish one bit.
ANDREW FINCH
Simon a rather unpleasant and ill informed post by yourself don't you think?.
Wind farms are not as viable as many fans will have you believe and do far more harm to the surroundings and wildlife.
It has nothing to do with being a nimby it is called preserving the countryside for generations to come not standing by and allowing large power companies and greedy individuals ruin the countryside littering it with turbines and turning it in to one big scrap yard.
Your argument on interlopers on this issue is rather weak, and the old days of a drunk driver?? this was major problem no matter where you lived many years ago , possibly you or others who remember or stood by and watched a drunk driver driver off it to the evening sun were as guilty as he, for standing around and watching it. .
Bill
I hesitate to guess a lady's age but this needs to be seen in a longer term context.
Fifty to sixty years ago you could equally well admire first class architecture and historic urban landscapes unencumbered by lamp-posts, street signs, advertising hoardings and the lke. Over the years we have learnt to see through them or round them and perceive the reality without the clutter.
There are many valleys and rural areas where pylons already march across the landscape; those with a balanced perception again see through them. From certain vantage points they also draw the eye through the vista or even point up the depth and distance through their diminishing perspective.
Yes, I'd rather they weren't necessary. But sadly unless we want to consume more fossil fuel or accept the (very) long-term issues of nuclear there appear to be no alternatives but to populate many of our high places with wind turbines.
But I do wish they'd arrange them a little more tidily so they become almost an artistic statement in the landscape rather than seeming to be a randomly placed, meaningless clutter. At least the pylons, for all their ugliness, proceed in an orderly straight line!
Patricia
Bill, you don't seem to be aware that fossil fuel generators are running to back up the turbines when there is too little or too much wind. Nor do you appear to know the dangers associated with living up to a km away from a pylon. For instance a child is 70% per cent more likely to get leukemia while adult cancers increase by 25% per cent. See the work of Prof. Denis Henshaw of Bristol University.
Rachel Whiteman
What a beautiful sculptural, forward-thinking view in the picture shown above! I live in Michigan, USA. We have a growing "forest" of wind turbines near to our house, which we stand and admire. The view is magnificent.
Robin Larder
Should have gone to Specsavers.
Catrin Jen
Emma, do not worry: the fury of the locals will keep the pylons at bay. Ultimately, our love for our home is going to make us fight harder than their desire for profit. And Bill, a major reason for the fury is that windfarms actually do not work. They are an ugly means of making the poor poorer and the rich richer
Jaci Dunsford
Who in their right mind can really imagine windfarms, which are inefficient to say the least, can come anywhere near pre-empting the need for nuclear? Wake up!
And because they are inefficient, cannot be used if the wind isn't blowing and cannot be used when the wind is blowing too hard, there have to be back-up fossil fuel power stations, standing by and charging more for their supply, to kick in whenever the call for power is not being met by the windpower generators!
So little power will be produced by these invasive, overwhelming, sickening and environmentally destructive turbines. It is truly a disaster, with pylons and hubs adding insult to injury. And who's going to pay for all this? Who do you think?
Peter
Get a grip - there are pylons all over the countryside - they spoil nothing.
It's interesting isn't it, that the fantasy of rural life often includes the AGA in the kitchen, made not far from the Star's HQ in Ketley as far as I'm aware. With all due respect to the good people of Ketley, it's not the most picturesque place on earth, nor will the areas where the JLR workers who make your Land Rovers and Range Rovers live.
Apparently it's OK got them to live surrounded by the clutter of the industrial age, but not for you to have a few pylons spoiling your rural idyll. What hypocrisy...
Me
Wind farms only 2% efficient so we will still require other forms such as nuclear for the other 98%!!!!!
Peaky
lol
no doubt she wrote this blog on a solar powered lap top
no, thought not
cut her power off for a week, she will soon learn to love wind turbines
dai
i dont suppose the place will look very beautiful if the average annual temperature rises by two degrees and all the trees die in the following drought and the lush green grass goes brown and scorched and the rivers dry up hey?
think about it, the biggest threat to the UK landscape is climate change which will crucify farming as we know it
GB
"baited breath"?
Were you having maggots or worms with your breakfast?
And what on earth is a "storey-book"?
R Suppards
Never mind, Emma, you'll be able to eat in the dark after the lights have gone out. Assuming, that is, that you cook by gas.