21/11/12 Planning committee decision

Great news! Camarthen Council planning committee decided yesterday afternoon to turn down the application to build a 21 turbine right on the top of Mynydd Llanllwni. The vote was 10 to 4 against, agreeing with the council officers that the application was against a number of policies outlined in the Local Development plan. And this fact outweighed any possible benefit to the public of producing wind based energy. It was also pointed out that there was plenty of space in another part of the Strategic Search area (laid down by the Welsh Government's TAN8) for such a wind farm that wouldn't be so intrusive and with a lesser impact on the local community. About a dozen people from the local area spoke out against the application, including yours truly as shown in my last blog, and 3 people spoke out for the developer, including the farmer who owns Bryn Llywelyn. From the councilors there were 2 who spoke against the proposal and 3 who asked some questions. There was no real debate and very quickly the event was over.
There were huge cheers from the visitors in the balcony where there were a large number of our supporters and there were scenes of jubilation that 2 years hard work had paid off. The process had good coverage from the local media, including TV and press who expressed surprised that there was almost no local support for this attack on our way and quality of life. Now we have to wait and see if RES go to an appeal with the Welsh Government and RES have 6 months to decide. If that happens, they will be taking on the local authority but the latter will have our full support and I say "BRING IT ON!!!

21/11/12 Speech at planning committee meeting

PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING 20/11/12

 My name is Ted Razzell and i've been in Llanllwni since 1971. I want to put it to the committee that RES information, concerning the impact of sound levels on the local community, is unreliable and misleading. I've heard from neighbours suffering from noise problems, produced by the existing  nearby wind farm called Alltwalis.  So I'm concerned about the possible repeat of the problem from this application, and I've looked into the sound issue to see what was behind it. // A process called ETSU 97 R has been used here to determine where turbines may be placed to produce acceptable levels of sound at the homes of local people. Local background noise was measured and set against turbine noise to produce a residual extra noise. Getting an accurate measure of ambient noise raises problems, especially in a very tranquil place like Llanllwni but I don't have time to explore these issues. Instead I will look at how turbine noise is measured. Close up, very little noise can be perceived at ground level but, at blade level, it's another question. // Air turbulence here creates both audible & inaudible sound with a pulsating low frequency noise. ETSU doesn't allow for low frequency noise to be considered when measuring total turbine noise, since it isn't thought to be a serious nuisance and is therefore discounted. However, a considerable amount of empirical research has been carried out in the last few years, in response to many neurological complaints from people living near wind farms. In 1996, when ETSU was designed to offset complaints, there was very limited knowledge about  the impact of low frequency sound, and turbines were much smaller. It is now found from evidence gathered globally that, in fact, LF noise can cause many neurological difficulties, such as insomnia, depression, migraine, vertigo and loss of concentration. This situation has been recognized by the prestigious British Medical Journal which calls for urgent independent research and the WHO which is concerned about human rights on this issue. Also,  I was particularly impressed by the work of Dr Amanda Harry, a neurological expert, who explained in depth the pathology of sound related illness. Equally worrying is the fact that low frequency sound can be heard over large distances and can penetrate house walls which raises even more serious issues about the ETSU process. In fact, some British researchers have labelled this process as "not fit for purpose". // To sum up then, I suggest that, given all the available evidence, it is unwise to accept assurances about sound levels and their impact on people's lives. So, this application should be turned down to ensure that the health of even more local residents isn't put at risk!      

14/11/12 Carmarthen Officers Recommendation

Good news today - Council Officers have recommended to the planning committee to reject the application by RES to build  21 giant wind turbines on the top of Llanllwni Mountain. All that remains is to convince local councilors to agree, given the enormous strength of local opposition. I will be speaking at next Tuesday's committee meeting about the amazing amount of research evidence that exposure to wind turbines' low frequency noise can cause severe neurological problems. Let's hope the members will take this issue responsibly. For any one interested in looking at the issue, I recommend reading Dr. Amanda Harry, 2007 "Wind Turbines and Health".
Ted Razzell  

09/11/12 letter sent to Carmarthen Journal

Dear Editor,

On this coming Tuesday 20th, Carmarthen Council will make a decision on the proposed wind farm at Bryn Llywelyn. These 21 giant turbines will have a serious impact on the quality of life and well being of local residents. If you wanted to have  the maximum negative impact on the local environment then you couldn't choose a better place than the summit of Mynydd Llanllwni since this wind farm will be visible for up to 30 miles in nearly all directions. Not only will there be noise problems, which I wrote about recently, but also safety  and hydrology issues as well as a bad impact on tourism.

 However, I would like to draw attention to an even bigger problem. If developers can get away with placing this scale of wind farm in such a prominent place, then this precedent will make it difficult to oppose other wind farms on this mountain complex. Already we are waiting with some trepidation for a decision on the neighbouring , even larger wind farm application known as Brechfa West.  Since the decision will be made early next year by the UK Energy Secretary, we can't expect much sympathy from that quarter.  This is the man who stated recently that wind turbines are between 80 to 85% efficient and that low frequency sound does not cause health problems. Perhaps he is just misinformed!

So we face the prospect of turning this mountain complex from an agricultural / recreational zone into an industrial zone and its impact on local people and wildlife doesn't bear thinking about. Local property prices will fall and some houses will become unsaleable. There is already talk of people simply abandoning their properties, as happened to a couple in Lincolnshire recently. We residents in this area can only hope that local councillors will take good note of these problems and put the interests of local people before the dictates of Welsh and Central Government.

Yours truly,

Ted Razzell

I hope this letter will be published on Wednesday 14th  i.e. before the committee meeting on the 20th! 

09/11/12 Planning meeting on 20 November in Carmarthen

I will be allowed to speak to the planning committee at this meeting for 2 minutes - shame it couldn't be for longer! I could speak for 2 hours on my subject of the failings of ETSU i.e. why this system does not deal with questions of public health caused by wind turbine noise. I'll publish later the speech I hope to make.
Ted Razzell

01/11/12 Planning committee meeting on 20/11/12

Carmarthen council's planning committee will meet on November 20th to decide about the RES application to site 21 giant wind turbines on Mynydd Llanllwni. The council have decided that 6 people who asked for permission to speak at the relevant meeting on the 20th have been granted this privilege, including myself. So if you have any new points to make to the council, please email me on ted.razzell@gmail.com. Meanwhile all 6 people will have to meet and decide who covers various matters of concern to avoid duplication of effort.

30/10/12 Wind farm rules

Dear Editor,

 New empirical research, just published, shows clearly that the guidelines, known as ETSU,  in determining an acceptable distance between wind turbines and human dwellings, are "not fit for purpose".  Researchers, such as  Cox, Unwin, and Sherwin, give a large number of reasons in their assessment of this problem but concentrate on turbine noise impact. One area of considerable importance is that ETSU allows developers to ignore the impact of low frequency sound and infrasound. Other research from sleep expert, Dr.Hanning, and from all over the world, shows clearly that exposure to these types of sound cause neurological problems to residents. So it is not surprising that people who live near the existing wind farm near Gwyddgrug have, for several years, been experiencing  sleeplessness and a variety of allied problems, despite the fact that the developers kept to ETSU guidelines in the placing of their wind turbines.

.

 On the 20th November, Carmarthen Council will have to decide  whether or not to give planning permission to a proposed 21 giant turbines at Bryn Llywelyn, close by the existing wind farm mentioned above. The developers, RES, have used ETSU guidelines in the positioning of these potential new turbines (much bigger than the existing ones) so it is very possible  that even more people will have their health undermined, should permission be given. Not to mention many other problems such as reduced property values and a negative impact on tourism.

I'm probably naive but I always assumed that government's main role is to look after the well being of its citizens; perhaps that role doesn't apply to countryside dwellers. In fact, both the British and the Welsh governments have, in the recent past, refused to order a review of ETSU, despite their own research( via DEFRA) pointing out the problems arising from these guidelines. Need I say more?

In this letter, I have entered in  italics those words removed by the editors of the Carmarthen Journal.

10/10/12 Destroyed in Seconds

On the evening of 24 August, the Quest TV channel broadcast an item called 'Destroyed in Seconds'. It showed a wind turbine in Denmark being literally blown apart,very rapidly indeed. Apparantly, in responding to a sudden wind squall, this turbine was unable to turn itself off due to a failure of its braking system. Large chunks of debris were flung into the air and passed over the roof of a house way beyond the 400 metre safety radius, according to the resident; luckily nobody was hurt because there was a few minute's notice before the event.
This incident has implications for the current Bryn Llwelyn proposal to place turbines near the Mountain Road leading from Llanllwni. RES, has stated that nobody has ever been hurt by the normal operation of a wind farm but in real life, abnormal things happen including lightning strikes, ice build up, blade or bearing failure as well as extreme weather. There have been a numberof these instances in recent times all over Europe as well as in the U.K., sometimes leading to unquenchable fires.
In this local case, if granted peremission, there would be 2 giant turbines 250 and 300 metres from the Mountain Road on its windward  side so that any passing traffic or parked tourists in the area would be put at extreme risk from turbine failure. Worse still, there is no proposal to fence off any of the planned 21 giant turbines from the public or grazing animals so the risk of injury would be widespread to put it mildly! All this despite the fact that guidelines from a well known wind turbine supplier organisation in their Wind Turbine Mechanical Operating and Maintenance Manual state "Do not stay within a radius of 400 metres from the turbines unless it is necessary".
It is clera to me that, for a number of reasons, if we really needto have these giant industrial machines despoiling our countryside, they should be placed at least 2 kilometres from any human occupation and the turbines themselves should be surrounded by fencing at least 750 metres away. Anything less than these measures would be a clear breach of public health and safety - it seems that RES have not heard of the precautionary principle!

Electricity Discount 16/08/12

The following letter was sent to the Carmarthen Journal:

Dear Editor,
It is interesting to note that, at a very late stage of the planning process, the wind farm developer RES is now offering local people a discount on their electricity bills if the Bryn Lllywelyn application receives planning permission. Why would they do this and why now? It could be an act of desperation, bearing in mind that cost benefit analysis of their proposals show that virtually all the benefits of turning our valuable unique mountain complex into an industrial zone, accrue outside Wales and a large portion of the costs would be felt here in Carmarthenshire. Even the government inspector at the public inquiry recently into the Brechfa West proposed wind farm accepted this situation in a meeting on July 11th.
To be charitable to RES, it may be they feel morally responsible that local residents will suffer in so many ways from the impact that these giant industrial structures will have on their lives. So it is felt that monetary compensation will soften the blow so to speak. However, no amount of money, I suggest, can offset, among other things, damage to people's health.The evidence that this would happen is borne out by an ever increasing, overwhelming amount of evidence from all over the world, not to mention what has already happened in Gwddgrug. The negative sound impact of these giant turbines cannot be ignored.
Also it has recently been revealed that the existence of nearby wind farms does have an impact on property values. The body that assesses these values, known as VOA, has created a number of precedents in c ases of dwellings near wind farms having their council tax bands reduced. There is not space here to mention in detail all the other negative impacts on our community such as reduced earnings from tourism, traffic chaos, loss of amenity, loss of habitat etc. etc. Money cannot buy what we have here i.e. a priceless asset in the form of a rare, tranquil, unspoiled, accessible mountain complex which has taken many thousand of years to form. I suggest that the people of Carmarthenshire have a public duty to the whole of this country to protect this asset against short term interests, even if it means defying the political needs of the government in Cardiff! I can't help wondering how much we would have to pay RES to go away!!

Yours sincerely,

Ted Razzell

Although the editors decided to publish my letter, they decided to remove any speculation in it so that while I had raised the question of RES motivation, no answers appeared. However, since that publication, it has been revealed that any one receiving as much as a penny from RES will be considered to have a financial interest in the developer's activities and consequently will not legally be able to complain at raised levels of turbine sound noise.  

01/08/12 Letter to Carmarthen Journal "Turbines v People"

                       Turbines  v  People

What matters more: green energy targets or residents' health?  Profits for developers or profits from tourism? Clear evidence has emerged from recent local inquiries that people living near the Alltwalis  wind farm have suffered from turbine noise to an unacceptable level. The government has laid down a system called ETSU which is supposed to prevent such events happening but it has clearly failed to do so. It is very worrying that ETSU is still being used in assessing another 60 giant turbines that could be built in the Mynydd Llanllwni / Llanfrihangel Rhos y Corn area, so even more people could be adversely affected.

It is astounding to discover that, in forecasting the sound level likely to be experienced at individual properties, so called experts are allowed to ignore low frequency sound emanating from turbines, since very low frequencies (also known as infrasound) can't be heard by human beings. However, this sound can be experienced by several other human senses. An increasing number of independent studies,  some commissioned by DEFRA, have shown that low frequency noise of all types can cause neurological problems, even when at the infrasound level. Also this type of noise can be experienced at surprising distances such as 5 or even 25 miles away. Despite all  this evidence, governments at all levels have recently refused to re-evaluate the ETSU  guidelines, so it seems the health of the public and its human rights are less important than green energy!

Developers also tell us that a large majority of the general public are in favour of onshore wind farms and would not be put off from visiting areas with turbines. What they do not mention is that the vast majority of survey respondents (mostly from South East England) have no knowledge of the problems associated with these giant industrial structures. It is difficult to accept that potential tourists would want to spend time in an area littered with these noisy, potentially dangerous, giant machines, as opposed to a tranquil unspoiled countryside. More tourism is obviously in the economic interest of Carmarthenshire and to allow developments which would offset such beneficial progress is the height of folly!

Ted Razzell

29/06/12 The mad pressure for wind farms

The Welsh Assembly is putting pressure on local councils to hurry up and approve lots more onshore wind farms. You get the impression that these people, who are supposed to look after our interests, won't be satisfied until they have covered most of the Welsh countryside with these giant industrial structures. The stupid thing about all this situation is that it makes no sense to place these so called wind farms on prominent hill tops. There might be more wind there as opposed to alongside city centres, but any gain in energy output is lost through transmission loss. There is also the extra building cost of transporting the structures to outlying sites and the cost of a huge number of  unsightly giant pylons wending across the countryside. It makes no economic sense.You get the impression that these politicians are not really interested in the opinion of local people, who cannot be bribed by the developers,  but that polical parties are only interested in promoting their green credentials. So the madness is, that to protect the environment, you must destroy the environment!

25/06/12 Energy & Climate Change Select Committee

Tim Yeo, chairman of the committee has requested information on the economics of onshore windfarms. Among other things he seeks a cost benefit analysis of using this technology. Let us hope that all the costs will be considered i.e what economists call the externalised costs, which would be borne by each local community. Thus the committee should look at the loss of amenity, the effect on   people's health, the effect on tourism and  the local ecology as well as inconvenience on traffic when giant machinery is delivered; also the effect on property values.
It is interesting to note that Mr Yeo, M.P. is also President of the trade body' Renewable Energy Association'. Let us hope he will recuse himself when the Select Committee decides on it's report!

23/06/12 Lack of demand for wind turbines

Interesting to note that Vesta, one of the biggest wind turbine manufacturers, has decided not to go ahead with its proposed factory in Sheerness, Kent. Apparently there is not enough demand for this Danish company to go ahead with this project. Already they have stopped production on the Isle of Wight and now only carry out maintenance. Is this a writing on the wall that developers are getting cold feet now that the massive subsidies available for this industry are under threat?

Flood Problems

Extracts from a letter sent to Carmarthen Journal 20/06/12 by L J Jenkins,
" The (wind farm) turbines vast concrete bases and wide supply roads will replace the present highly absorbent peat and moorland, clearly resulting in regular flash floods downstream whenever there is far less rain than at present. Imagine the size of the non absorbent concrete platforms and wide roads required by structures almost as high as the Blackpool Tower! The run off of rainwater will be immediate! ....
On Sunday, June 10 there were flood warnings regarding the River Teifi at Llanybydder. Yet there are plans to build a huge TAN8 wind farm nearby on Mynydd Llanllwni, within the catchment of the River Teifi. Again there will be rapid run-off and flash flooding.....

Don't forget this is June, the driest time of the year. What will happen when it turns really wet from Autumn through Winter to Spring? Have the Assembly, the Environment Agency and county councils even considered this massive future problem as they meddle with nature on a gargantuan scale in our Welsh hills? All they are concerned about is carrying out green policies!".

21/06/12: You can now follow us on twitter

@nollanllwniwind

we decided to take the campaign to the 'Tweeters'

you can now follow us on facebook, website, blog and twitter

13/06/2012: Sympathy for CCC planners to make right decision

In another Letter Ted urges Carmarthen County Council planners to make the right decision


http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/sympathy-planners/story-16354556-detail/story.html

16/06/2012: Onshore subsidies to be scrapped by 2020

Wind subsidies to be scrapped by 2020 in 'apparent' victory for anti onshore campaigners.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9336027/Subsidies-for-onshore-wind-farms-to-be-axed-by-2020.html

29/05/12:Judge Rules in Favour of Beautiful Landscapes

In a highly significant ruling, a high court Judge upholds 'rights' of beautiful countryside over wind farms


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9298265/Ruling-on-wind-farm-says-the-countryside-is-as-important-as-climate-change-targets.html

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