A sign of the times and it was inevitable that this was going to happen but it has been brought to my attention that the views across the rolling Somerset countryside that I've always enjoyed from Buggeridge Towers are under threat from a proposal to build a giant wind turbine.
So last night saw me trudging up to the village hall, pitchfork in hand, with an assortment of ruddy faced, tub thumping locals to give the developers what-for at the public consultation.
And what-for we gave them too and it was only once all the shouting was over that I noticed that there was a pro-turbine contingent in our midst - a rather motley collection of green agit-proppers drafted in from their narrowboats on the Kennet and Avon Canal. We do have local greenies but they were conspicuous by their absence (yes, I'm looking at you Kevin McCloud). Also conspicuous by his absence was the farmer who stands to rake in £80k a year from having this monstrosity towering over the surrounding countryside from one of his fields.
Anyhow, they mouthed the normal stock platitudes about how our house prices won't be affected and how turbines don't really chomp the local avian wildlife. One of them even said the thing that always gets said in one of these debates - "I am in awe of what a highly engineered, graceful thing a wind turbine is" (or words to that effect) and then basked in the glow of the self satisfied smugness that consumes somebody after having proclaimed their veneration of Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi.
But what really annoyed me was the pronouncement by one of them that "all communities have a responsibility to contribute towards the generation of renewable sources of energy". In that case I ain't getting off my soap box until there's a wind turbine on Hampstead heath. I'm sure there's plenty of wind up there and not just that of the hot variety generated by the inhabitants of the enclaves below.
So last night saw me trudging up to the village hall, pitchfork in hand, with an assortment of ruddy faced, tub thumping locals to give the developers what-for at the public consultation.
And what-for we gave them too and it was only once all the shouting was over that I noticed that there was a pro-turbine contingent in our midst - a rather motley collection of green agit-proppers drafted in from their narrowboats on the Kennet and Avon Canal. We do have local greenies but they were conspicuous by their absence (yes, I'm looking at you Kevin McCloud). Also conspicuous by his absence was the farmer who stands to rake in £80k a year from having this monstrosity towering over the surrounding countryside from one of his fields.
Anyhow, they mouthed the normal stock platitudes about how our house prices won't be affected and how turbines don't really chomp the local avian wildlife. One of them even said the thing that always gets said in one of these debates - "I am in awe of what a highly engineered, graceful thing a wind turbine is" (or words to that effect) and then basked in the glow of the self satisfied smugness that consumes somebody after having proclaimed their veneration of Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi.
But what really annoyed me was the pronouncement by one of them that "all communities have a responsibility to contribute towards the generation of renewable sources of energy". In that case I ain't getting off my soap box until there's a wind turbine on Hampstead heath. I'm sure there's plenty of wind up there and not just that of the hot variety generated by the inhabitants of the enclaves below.
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