Country Guardian opposes industrial wind farms connected to the national power network onshore and offshore. It is the impact of these industrial installations and their side-effects that are opposed - not wind power itself. Small-scale wind power, fed direct to the consumer, can be a useful method of electricity generation for

households, farms, estates and small communities (e.g. on a remote island) which do not have access to mains electricity .

Such installations may be acceptable if they :-

a) do not detract from the natural scale and character of the local and neighbouring environments.

b) do not endanger people living nearby, or those visiting the adjacent countryside, either on foot or horse.

c) do not blight the lives of people living nearby with noise, flicker and moving shadows.

d) do not create divisions amongst local people.

e) do not lead to people becoming economically disadvantaged through reduced property values.

f) do not disadvantage the local economy and tourist industry.

Good planning is about balance. The irreparable ecological damage, loss of amenity and distressing divisions within communities caused by industrial wind turbines far outweigh any benefit of their insignificant and unreliable contribution to our energy needs. They represent an unreliable, intermittent output of electricity from a technology covering a huge spatial footprint for a negligible saving of CO2 emissions - abetted by the need for back-up from fossil-fuelled electricity. Industrial windpower cannot possibly justify the huge sacrifice of that most finite and priceless resource - our unspoilt rural and marine environment.