My Letter to Sec of State at DECC about wind farms

Last week 101 Conservative MPs wrote to the Prime Minister expressing their concerns about the scale of subsidy being handed over to giant energy companies (usually foreign) to enable them to build uneconomic wind farms and their concern about the bias in the planning system against local objectors. Although I was an enthusiastic supporter of this letter, I could not sign it myself without resigning my position as a PPS. Following discussion with the Whip's Office, I sent a personal letter to the Sec. of State at the Dep't of Energy and Climate Change. By the time my letter landed on the DECC desk, the recipient in the big chair turned out to be Ed Davey, rather than Chris Huhne. Anyway, my letter was not confidential and it follows;

"Dear Secretary of State,
Over the last few months I have been approached by a large number of constituents who have raised their concern about the level of support there is available for onshore wind energy generation.

In these financially straightened times, my constituents believe it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies onshore wind turbines.

In the ongoing review of renewable energy subsidies, my constituencies have asked me to ensure that the Coalition Government considers dramatically cutting the subsidy for onshore wind and spreading the savings made between other types of reliable renewable energy production and energy efficiency measures.

Finally, recent planning appeals have approved wind farm developments with inspectors citing renewable energy targets as being more important than planning considerations. Taken to its logical conclusion, this means that it is impossible to defeat applications through the planning system. My constituents urge you to ensure that planning inspectors know that the views of local people and long established planning requirements should always be taken into account.

Yours sincerely. Glyn Davies. MP for Montgomeryshire.

I suppose you could look at my letter as No 102 on the list. Intestingly, all Conservative Assembly Members have tonight signed a letter supporting the MP's letter of last week. There is no doubt that there is a real antipathy to onshore wind blowing up in the Conservaive Party.