Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Limited
Sunday Times (London)

March 7, 2004, Sunday

SECTION: Features; Home; 12

LENGTH: 1219 words

HEADLINE: Wind farms: the new leylandii?

BYLINE: Ros Dodd

BODY:
It's the Nimby issue that blows all the others away. ROS DODD meets the pros
and antis on greener energy

When Michael Rochester decided to build an ecofriendly home in the ruggedly
beautiful landscape of Sutherland, in Scotland, his proposals included a
small wind turbine to provide him with green electricity. He says local
planners were happy with the idea, a government office was "eager" to give
him a £6,000 subsidy and nearby residents were unruffled.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), however, was against the plan to erect the
machine "on the skyline" rather than next to the house, on the basis that it
might cause "visual intrusion" in a scenic area.

"It would have stood about 6 metres tall and, from the road beneath the
house, it would have been visible for only 40 metres," says Rochester, a
55-year-old housemaster at an independent school who has spent £200,000 on
the timber- framed property. "Yes, it would have made a bit of a statement,
but the building makes a statement."

Rochester wanted one lone turbine, but there are now 84 much larger wind
projects up and running in the UK, the windiest country in Europe. Thousands
more, both onshore and offshore, are planned as part of the government's
drive to generate 10% of the country's electricity from renewable energy
sources by 2010, and 15% by 2015.

However, it's not just SNH that is getting in the way of the government's
green targets. Last year, the Ministry of Defence objected to 48% of
proposals for wind turbines on pilot safety grounds, and the Royal Society
for the Protection of Birds also weighed in last week, threatening legal
action to halt some schemes.

The arguments at this level reflect deep divisions within the general
population over how the increased use of wind power will affect the national
landscape. Wind farms topped a recent survey in Country Life magazine of the
10 "most hated eyesores", and pro-wind energy homeowers such as Rochester
face angry opposition from those who believe their house prices will plummet
if turbines are erected nearby. It is a Nimby issue that could make fights
over hedge-heights and mobile-phone masts look like playground spats.

A recent court case legally established that wind farms can reduce property
values. Gill Haythornthwaite and Barry Moon sued the couple who sold them a
£132,500 cottage in the Lake District without telling them about a planned
wind farm 500m away. In a landmark judgment at Barrow-in-Furness county
court in January, the district judge ordered the former owners to pay
Haythornthwaite and Moon more than £15,000 in compensation, saying the
cottage, near Ulverston, in Cumbria, had been devalued by the wind project.

A few miles to the northeast, plans to erect 27 turbines more than 107m tall
at Whinash, near Kendal, have divided one of Cumbria's most eminent
families. The Earl of Lonsdale, 81, objects to the scheme, while Jimmy
Lowther, one of his sons, controls a large portion of the 90,000-acre
Lowther Estate, via a series of trusts, on which the turbines could be
built. If approved, it will be Britain's largest wind farm.

"This is one of the last totally wild natural areas," says Lonsdale. "To
urbanise it with a load of wind turbines would spoil the whole damned
district."

A similarly bitter row has erupted in the Blackmore Vale, on the Somerset
Dorset border, where residents are battling proposals to site two 100m-high
turbines in the tiny hill-top village of Cucklington.

Dee Worlock, of the Save the Vale action group, says that even if the
development is blocked, property prices will suffer while the debate rolls
on: "There are two cottages for sale at the moment, 500 metres from where
the machines will be sited, and people aren't interested in buying them.
We're going to have property blight until the issue is resolved."

The messages posted on the community website www.icWessex.co.uk (where a
poll currently shows 69% against the wind turbines) reflect the strength of
local sentiment. "Send the wind-farm objectors down the mines to dig out the
coal they so want to rely on!" reads one from a pro-wind farm reader. But
according to an opponent: "To erect two enormous wind turbines in the
Blackmore Vale would be an act of vandalism."

Neville Anderson is a farmer in Blandford Forum, about 15 miles south of
Cucklington and on the edge of the Winterborne Valley, where two more wind
farms are likely to be sited. He believes they are necessary.

"The government says, 'Let's build more houses in the countryside.' If
you're going to build more homes, then you need more roads in the
countryside. What the hell is the difference between that and putting a few
windmills on top of the hills?" he says.

"The world demands more electric power, yet we are going to run out of coal
soon, so we have to think about what will come next. Will our successors
thank us if we reject sustainable development? Our country should not be
preserved in aspic it is a dynamic place and changes are inevitable."

Despite the fury of objectors to future developments, many of those who
already live near turbines not only agree with Anderson, but are positively
enthusiastic about wind farms.

Jenny Rose is delighted that her bungalow is only half a mile from the first
of two turbines to go up in Swaffham, Norfolk, which produce 75% of the
market town's electricity. Rose, who paid just over £100,000 for her home on
a development for people over 55, and is a fan of wind farms on both
aesthetic and environmental grounds, has no doubt that her home will
appreciate in value. "I have every confidence that the price of this
property is going up even as we speak," she says. "I can't see that the
turbine will make a jot of difference."

Dave Cunnington knew nothing of a plan to erect the second wind machine in
Swaffham -the UK's tallest turbine, at 85m -when he bought his home there.
The first he knew of it was the day he and his wife moved in, last August.
"I was aware of the first turbine, but I was a little bit surprised to find
another, about 500m from our back kitchen window," he says. "When we drove
up, it reared its head like a dinosaur.

"I had no idea it was going up; it didn't show up on any of the land
searches.

Because it's right in your face, it besmirches the landscape."

Cunnington, a 60-year-old businessman who moved to Swaffham from north
London, believes the previous owners also knew nothing about the turbine's
imminent arrival.

But is he concerned his property may slump in value as a result? "It would
be better if it wasn't there. But if you're 'evergreen', and a lot of people
are, then it wouldn't affect the value."

Local agents support his view. Paul Brewster, branch manager of Abbotts
estate agents in the town, says the two wind machines have not had a
discernible effect on house prices: "There was concern when the first one
went up four years ago that it might have an adverse effect on property
values, but we didn't lose any sales, nor did we have to reduce prices."

Up in northern Scotland, Michael Rochester has reluctantly accepted the ban
on his single turbine and installed mains electricity -and that meant
erecting three electricity poles instead.

John Paul/Paul Armiger/Collections/Robert Hallman



LOAD-DATE: March 8, 2004