Opposition groups join up to fight turbine development

Published Date: 17 June 2009
By Jenny Haworth

AN ALLIANCE of more than 30 action groups opposed to wind farm development in the British countryside was launched yesterday.
The new organisation, the National Alliance of Wind Farm Action Groups (Nawag) aims to bring together community groups from England, Scotland and Wales that oppose the developments.There are about 200 local campaign groups across the UK, and Nawag hopes they will all eventually join the new alliance.Jon McLeod, chairman of the group, said the aim was to create a powerful voice for communities "in the face of the highly resourced pro-wind lobby".Members of the alliance include groups from Angus, Caithness and West Stirlingshire.Nawag will lobby politicians, and offer advice to local groups trying to fight wind farms.It will argue that there should be an exclusion zone that bans turbines being built closer than 2km to homes.Mr McLeod, who is already involved in a campaign against a wind farm in Derbyshire, said: "For too long, the 'greenwash' of the wind industry has gone unchallenged, and that stops today. "As anyone who has come up against the pro-wind lobby will tell you, behind wind power's 'cuddly' image lies a cynical and harsh reality."Communities up and down the country are simply not prepared to stand by and let our landscape be disfigured by wind turbines that will do little or nothing to stop climate change, less still secure our energy supply."Mr McLeod added that "every landscape" was at risk from "a wind lobby high on public subsidy and hungry for profits".