Councillor threatened over wind farm

We’re deeply shocked at news from East Riding in Yorkshire where a local councillor has been threatened over wind farm planning applications. Councillor Chapman received a menacing message the day before the planning committee meeting that was due to rule on two local wind farms. He was told that if he voted in favour he’d ‘be forever looking over his shoulder’.

It will come as a surprise to many Embrace supporters that anyone could be so enraged by a renewable energy development that they’d resort to threatening violence, but it’s clear that the debate is becoming highly polarised. Only a couple of years ago, a farmer in Norfolk was driven to suicide by the tactics adopted by the local anti-wind lobby. Further down the scale, earlier this year we reported the underhand means an opposition group near Market Harborough had used to secure letters of ‘opposition’ to a wind farm development.

Not all anti-wind groups are involved in this sort of activity, it’s important to make clear. However, even groups staying inside the law have a penchant for the bizarre and misrepresentative – look at the Scottish group in Penicuik who made a wicker wind turbine and set fire to it. A favourite tactic is to fly a balloon up to the height of the proposed turbine – not on the site itself, but in town centres. Relying on people not realising that things look smaller when they’re further away seems a little underhand – and little patronising!