What the local politicians say




Louise Bagshawe Conservative Member of Parliament for Corby and East Northamptonshire

As the Conservative MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire, I want to be clear where I stand on onshore wind farms in our area. My answer is "no way".

I believe passionately in green energy and the green economy. But that must be balanced with conservation. Inefficient onshore wind turbines would blight our beautiful countryside, ruin views over an ancient landscape and make local people's lives a misery.

This application is one of several for our area. I will be fighting them all - lobbying local councils and, if elected, fighting against them in Parliament. Unlike the previous Labour MP I don't agree that MPs should not get involved in major planning issues. My take on it is that MPs should fight in defence of their constituents. Our local area must come first.

I'm happy to report I raised the East Northants wind farms issue in a face-to-face meeting with Greg Clark, who would be Environment Secretary in a Conservative Government, and he assured me that wind farms would not be imposed on local people without their consent. In this he disagreed with previous Secretary Ed Miliband, who thinks onshore wind farms have to be accepted - whether local communities like it or not. I am always be ready to assist local campaigners in their fight against this ugly development.

(Edited comments to reflect General Election Result.)



Roger Helmer (Conservative) MEP for the East Midlands with Shaun at the Coffee Morning where Roger spoke to S.T.A.R. about wind farms and conservation.

During my ten years as Conservative MEP for the East Midlands, I have been gratified to see a number of protest groups spring up in the region, to fight the blight of the windfarms spreading across our landscape like a rash. I am pleased to be able to lend my support.

We need protest groups like this - a great many - because the number of new applications for wind farm sites is unprecendented. And why? It's all down to the craze amongst policy makers to push for energy from renewables, telling us all that, should we fail to address the problem of climate change, we are all doomed. But is this so? In fact, the slight increase in global temperatures since 1850 is totally consistent with the natural cyclical trends of global climate over many thousands of years. The observed pattern of warming, in terms of both latitude and altitude, is wholly different from that predicted by CO2-based climate models. The logarithmic nature of CO2's climate forcing effect means that today's levels of CO2 generate virtually all the greenhouse effect that CO2 can cause, and further emissions will make little difference. And to cap it all, the world has got slightly cooler over the last ten years. How long do we have to live with stable or cooling temperatures before climate hysteria runs out of steam?

However, even if we were to believe the CO2 dogma, wind power would not be the answer to our problems. The EU would like to see a CO2 reduction target of 20% by 2020 (15% for the UK). This is unachievable, and will cause huge economic damage. The government is relying mostly on wind power, hence the push for new planning applications, and it simply won't get the turbines in time. When it does get them, it will find it difficult if not impossible to balance the grid with a high percentage of randomly variable wind power, and the costs and emissions of the necessary conventional back-up will off-set most of any environmental benefits. Of course even if the UK could reduce its CO2 emissions to zero by next year, our shortfall would be made up by emissions growth in China alone in the same time-scale, so our impact on climate change (even if you accept the alarmist scenario) would be zero.

If the British Government really is serious about energy security, and it should be, then the answer is an immediate program of new nuclear and coal plants to replace those coming to the end of their life cycles, and to provide the extra capacity we will undoubtedly need in the future due to population expansion in the UK.

Wind power is nothing more than an expensive folly that neither our landscape, nor our treasury can afford to bear the burden of, and I intend to keep on fighting it.

Phil Hope previous (Labour) MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire

"My advice on the objections to wind turbines is the same as advice for other local planning issues that, as a local MP I have no influence in planning applications which are decided by Councillors."