The village of Orston used to be the sort of place where nothing ever happened. People liked it that way.
The most notable thing about this quiet, leafy settlement in Nottinghamshire was that the parish church had a drum from the Battle of Waterloo.
But suddenly the 450 villagers have been pitched into a battle of their own, against green energy developers.
Four industrial-scale projects including a pair of huge wind turbines are proposed for fields on the edge of Orston, just outside the village conservation area.
“This is green vandalism driven by greed,” says one local, unfolding a map in the pub, The Durham Ox. --
The battle is being fought not just in this village but across the whole of Britain. There has been a surge in such projects in recent times as companies rush to take advantage of lucrative consumer subsidies, as the Government strives to ensure that 15 per cent of Britain’s energy needs are met from renewable sources by 2020.
Last year, wind turbine owners received help amounting to £1.2 billion. That was effectively £100,000 per job in the wind farm industry, paid for by a supplement on electricity bills. The total subsidy is expected to rise to £6 billion by 2020.
Over the last few days, energy companies have warned the Prime Minister that bills will continue to rise if they have to keep paying for green subsidies and environmental taxes.
Mr Morris, 64, the former renewable energy consultant, says: “The wind turbine situation is absolutely diabolical. Anybody with a business background can look at the economics of it and see that without the subsidies it would be an absolute no-goer.”
Read the entire article here
No comments:
Post a Comment