On World Environment Day, North-East people are being urged to embrace a more environmentally caring culture, but amid growing support for the green lobby, there is widespread concern over wind farms and what some consider a blight on the landscape. Will Roberts reports.

CAMPAIGNERS are calling for local and national government to have a policy re-think to protect the region from being destroyed by an influx of wind farms.

Figures obtained by The Northern Echo show there have been 82 separate applications or scoping reports for wind turbines in the region in the past five years.

The applications range from small-scale private schemes to large commercial wind farms, with 100-metre tall turbines.

The subject of wind turbines remains a clearly twosided one. The ever-increasing need for the country to start producing clean, renewable energy is countered by doubts over the effectiveness of wind power and the potentially destructive effect turbines can have on the surrounding environment.

Critics say that it is economics rather than ecology which is the driving force behind developers rushing to get a slice of the wind power pie.

Heavy government subsidies reduce the initial set-up cost of wind farms and, once established, developers can almost see the pounds falling off the blades with every rotation.

Under the Government’s Renewable Obligation scheme, power companies are required to source 9.7 per cent of their energy from renewable means.

This means wind farmers can sell their Renewable Obligation Certificates (Rocs) to energy companies at a premium – a cost which is ultimately passed on to the consumer.

A single wind turbine may cost £3m to erect, but if it stands for 25 years it is likely to pay for itself six times over.

Build enough and you have a farm full of cash cows.

Rob Williams, of Banks Developments, which is behind the North-East’s biggest wind farm, at Tow Law, County Durham, said that the regional renewable energy strategy will only allow wind farms to be built in the right places.

“The strategy has really shown the way when it comes to how to promote sustainable development of wind farms in the region,” he said.

“The North-East is really one of the most proactive regions in the country in terms of planning a long-term strategy.”

“The Government has pushed renewable energy very hard because it believes in a need for a low carbon future, and the North-East is starting to reap the benefits.

“Banks alone has invested £30m in the region during a recession, creating more than a hundred jobs.”

The turbines at Tow Law produce enough electricity to power 24,000 homes, but for ten per cent of the time they produce nothing.

When there is no wind, the blades don’t turn and the turbines won’t produce power, but other extreme conditions – high wind, heavy rain or freezing temperatures – also render them useless.

Meanwhile, homes and businesses rely on constant energy supply, meaning that for every megawatt of energy produced by a wind turbine, there needs to be the capacity to produce the same amount through other means – coal, gas or nuclear – should the conditions not be right.

“We currently get our coal and gas from Russia but at some point that will run out and we can’t rely on wind as our only source of energy, we can’t even rely on it as a major source of energy,” said John Wilson, an environmental scientist from Bolam, near Bishop Auckland, where npower Renewables wants to erect up to five 125-metre turbines on the outskirts of the village.

Mr Wilson, who helped establish Bolam Area Action Group (Baag) to fight the npower Renewables plan, said the guidelines used by the Government to dictate the acoustic effect a wind farm will have on the surrounding area are outdated.

“The Etsu (Energy Technology Support Unit) guidelines were carried out 12 years ago on turbines that were 30 metres tall – that is a quarter of the height of the turbines planned here at Bolam,”

His concerns about the guidelines have been echoed by a number of scientists, including former Etsu committee member, acoustician Dick Bowdler, who said in a report that Etsu “is so poor technically that its conclusions have to be queried”.

Members of Baag have called for the Government to implement a minimum 2km buffer between any wind farm and homes, saying that the noise generated from the turbines would make residents’ lives impossible.

Baag’s chairwoman, Trish Pemberton, said: “I believe Bolam is a very special village, but I fear that if the turbines are built we will lose our sense of place.

“And once that has gone, we won’t get it back. They say the turbines may only be there for 25 years, but I’m 55 now and I might not be alive when they go.

“I also don’t like the term ‘wind farm’. These are massive industrial units that will destroy a beautiful rural area.”

The worry for Baag is that, once five turbines are up, the precedent they set will open the door for others to follow.

The Banks project at Tow Law started with six turbines; now there are 26.

Baag also says residents’ lives could be ruined by shadow flicker – when the sun shines through the rotating blades creating a strobe-like effect.

It is not just humans who could suffer from the wind turbines.

Last month, the Taiwanese Ministry of Agriculture said it suspected 400 goats had died from lack of sleep after energy company Taipower installed eight large wind turbines close to the land the animals were grazing on.

North-East MEP Martin Callanan, who last week visited Bolam, said: “I am highly sceptical about the massive expansion of wind power. We have to accept that in reality the farms produce very little power, but the environmental impact in terms of damaging the countryside is great.

“They are expensive to create, but are subsided to such an extent that it makes it worthwhile for companies to build them.”

Mr Callanan said the Government must now re-think it’s strategy on wind power.

“We need a shift of strategy because not only are the targets set for wind energy unrealistic, but we have reached a point where communities have had enough.

“If we are to pursue wind as a form of energy, the Government needs to look at offshore.”

Bishop Auckland MP Helen Goodman said: “If we are to combat global warming, we have to change the way we produce our energy and wind is an essential part of that mix.

“In Scotland and in France, they have a rule where turbines can’t be built within 2km of houses and that is something we should be looking at.

“But the idea that wind energy is unreliable is just wrong. Germany has ten times more wind farms than us and is an industrial country with a big manufacturing base, and if they can do it so can we.

“If there are too many wind farms in the wrong place, the North-East could be spoilt, but they won’t be in the wrong places because they won’t be anywhere which is protected, and besides, there are only certain places that are windy enough.”

Residents who choose to fight wind turbine plans are certainly up against it.

In March, Climate Change Minister Ed Miliband said that opposing wind farms should be as “socially unacceptable”

as not wearing a seat belt or failing to stop at a zebra crossing.

“It’s David and Goliath – we all know that – but we won’t stop fighting,” said Mrs Pemberton.