25/04/12: 'Public Opinion' of Wind Farms true?

It is very surprising to hear about a survey carried out by the well respected IPSOS / Mori organisation into the issue of public support for onshore wind farm development. There appears to be an unbelievable amount of bias in the methodology used in selecting respondents. For example, people over 64 years old were excluded (possibly because their hearing had not been impaired by listening to loud pop music??). Secondly the bulk of opinions were sought from people living in the South East of England and West Midlands where there are very few wind farms so respondents would have little or no experience of the noise or other impacts of these giant turbines. Only 5% of chosen respondents were from Wales and 8% from Scotland where the vast majority of wind farms are to be found. Of course, without actual experience by people of wind farm impacts, they may well think that wind driven energy is a good idea and they won't be put off visiting affected areas.
It is interesting to note that in contrast to the IPSOS / Mori finding that 80% of people believed them acceptable, an online survey by the Friends of the Earth found that the majority of people were against onshore wind farms. OK respondents were self selected but you would have expected FoE site browsers would be pro rather than con wind farms!

25/04/12: Moratorium on wind farm development

At the meeting with the Welsh Government's petitions sub-committee on February 28th in Carmarthen, a number of Gwddgrug residents provided moving evidence of their health suffering from wind farm noise. During the meeting, Ted Razzell posed a question to the committee as follows: "Given the ever increasing number of research findings from all over the world that wind farm noise causes health problems to local inhabitants, will the committee consider a)recommending that, as a matter of urgency, there should be independent research commissioned in Wales to examine this issue and b) all decisions on wind farm applications, which entail placing turbines less than 2 kilometres from local dwellings, should be put on hold until the necessary research has been completed?"
After the meeting, he provided the cleks with internet evidence about the impact of wind turbine noise on public health from all over the world, including at a later stage, an article from the British Medical Journal backing the call for a moratorium on wind farm development until independent research on this issue had been carried out. Ted received a guarantee from both the chairman and the clerks that all the details from the meeting would be put to the full committee on Tuesday, May 1st.

24/04/12: National Media criticise Royal approach to Wind Farms on Crown Land - reference to Mt Llanllwni

The plight of our mountain made the nationals last Saturday albeit on a somewhat contraversial criticism for double standards by the Crown Estates and Royal Family.

Daily Mail Article

Daily Telegraph Article