Oh well Steve,Ivor and myself all attended yesterdays information day at Tonmawr together.We were asked to sign in on entry,then issued with a marker pen each, and were then pointed in the direction of some 6ft high information boards arranged in a zig-zag manner by an English employee of Nuon who admitted that she would be unable to answer any technical questions and that we were to keep these for the technical guys we would find on the other side of the information boards(oh and by the way the marker pens were for us to write our comments regarding the proposed wind farm development on to the end information board).I personally didn't write any comments, although 95% of the comments weren't favourable, one person even requested the possibility of Tonmawr receiving a swimming pool from the government instead of a wind farm, which makes perfect sense with the current obesity problem in Wales, and would probably save the government more money in health care fees in the long run.
After reading through the statistics of how wonderful this wind farm was going to be for the environment and how much electricity it was going to generate(whatever) we arrived at the technical guys to pose a few questions for example:-
Q) Where exactly would they be positioned and how many would there be?
A) We will be positioning them 600-700m from the edge of the hill so that the people low down in the valley won't be able to see them and at the moment they believe the erection of between 80 and a 100 turbines would be enough on the Rhigos alone, but they are also hoping to erect an unknown number on the other side of our ridge at Seven Sisters.
Q) How tall will they be to the tip of blade?
A) 120m or 360'.
Q) How many jobs will the development create, and where will the turbines be manufactured?
A) During the construction over a period of 24-30months it will create 200ish jobs, and the manufacture of the turbines will probably take place in Nuon's home country of Holland(where most of the workforce will probably come from too),and after completion the development will then be able to sustain the huge workforce of 20 local people, how good is that for the Welsh economy during these hard times.
Q) Over what period of time would you expect the windfarm to pay for itself in the event of it performing to it's estimated efficiency.
A) What do you mean, I've got one in my back garden that cost £12,000.00 and it generates enough domestic electricity for the family home, and more for me to sell to the grid(clearly this guy and his family are obviously very conscious about their carbon footprint), but they should pay for themselves in 10yrs over a 25yr lifespan.
Q)How did you get here today and who did you come with?(The guy that we spoke to was from Cornwall so I thought I'd ask him how he'd travelled as he was so environmentaly friendly).
A)By car and alone.(there were 6 employees of Nuon present, 5 from England and I bet none of them car shared to get there.Bear in mind that there are going to be another 2 of these information nights for them to travel to, and they are telling us that we must be more energy efficient.Steve,Ivor and myself car shared to attend and we only have to go once
)
Q) Will there be much pollution?
A) No, that's why we're positioning them up on the mountain.......
WE INTERUPT) What about visual pollution?
A) .....so that the people living in the valley below don't hear them and won't be able to see them......
WE INTERUPT AGAIN) But surely the reason that tourists walk and ride bicycles on the mountains is for the peace and tranquility, not to come and admire 80-100 wind turbines.
It was at this point that we realised he was just a salesman and nowhere near qualified enough to call himself a technical advisor, and so we allowed ourselves to be moved on to the final stage of our INFORMATION NIGHT which was a computer simulation of how wonderful the windfarm would look to tourists when they come to visit the beautiful mountainside that we harp on about.(Only once the tourists will come, and after seeing what we've allowed to happen not many will return, especially if future wind farm developments get the go ahead).
Last night I went to bed feeling lied to and betrayed by a Welsh Assembly that clearly don't really give a [censored] about Wales' tourism industry and really are more interested in making quick and easy money from european grants instead of looking after an area that boasts a world top 10 destination for mountain biking, after a lot of hard work, which could have it's reputation destroyed overnight by greed.
I woke up this morning, watched the news, and was informed that Britain was now in recession(like we didn't already know), so changed the channel to BBC Parliament, where low and behold they were showing a tourism debate from the House of Lords attended by a total of 15 MP's.....yes just 15 of the people that decide what happens in our country.I watched and listened with my jaw on the floor as I heard figures of £85 billion profit in 2008, expected to rise to over £100billion by 2012 due to the olympics(these are colossal amounts of money for the government especially during this financial crisis and they know it)....... tourism creates just over 2million jobs in the UK this figure includes hotel staff, manufacture of beds and bedding,etc that's apparently 7% of the workforce.......domestic and overseas visitors paid £44million in tax alone last year, that's enough funding for 30,000 nurses........it is at the moment the 5th largest industry in the UK, but it's position is expected to change over the next year to the 4th or even 3rd largest industry in the UK, and the Welsh Assembly are going to f*** it up for us big time if they continue with these greedy get rich quick schemes, because in welsh terms I would place tourism as our largest industry at the moment and certainly not a industry that should be damaged in any way.........there is also a 40-1 promotional return on tourism, meaning that for every £1 the government puts in the tourist industry makes £40.The UK has the 4th strongest tourist brand in the world, and I know that tourists will not want to visit Wales to see wind farms, and now is the time to capitalise on tourism due to the strength of the pound, it means that this year and for the next few Britain and Wales should have their best years ever for domestic and overseas visitors, and who knows the figures could exceed the welsh assembly's predicted amounts and may even make them realise how greedy they are being, and instead of building windfarms to get the forestry commision out of the [censored] they would be able to use tourists money to put back into an already successful industry, that will exist forever and not into a weather dependant windfarm industry.My opinion is that as we are an island use the water that we are surrounded by this way we are also guaranteed the energy not like a windfarm.
It was also mentioned in the House of Lords today that the Queen also mentioned in her Christmas speech how important tourism is for the UK and that we need to do all we can to promote this at home and abroad, my reason for stating this is that HRH Prince of Wales will be Patron of British Tourism Week this year March 10-18th, maybe he could call in to one of Nuon's 'Information Nights' to cast his eye over these plans and he will probably agree with me when I call them architectural monstrosities
Hope it's flyable soon, see you on the hill.
