Onshore Wind Energy

Richard Drax Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Walker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) for bringing this excellent debate to Westminster Hall.

I represent the people of South Dorset, which includes East Stoke, a lovely village situated between Wareham and Wool. An application was made there for eight wind turbines, although the number has now been reduced to four. The stress, worry and concern that the application caused my rural constituents, not to mention the campaigning they have done, and the cost and travel that has involved, far outweigh the small amount of energy that the four turbines will produce, if they are indeed erected. We are talking about the big, 400-metre turbines, whose output is, as the hon. Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) said, sufficient to boil a kettle. I agree that a big project such as a nuclear power station or an offshore wind turbine establishment is a different ball game. Indeed, plans are under way to have 180 giant offshore wind turbines, built by a company called ENERCON, off the Isle of Wight and south Dorset.

We talk about balance, and I have heard the word several times in the debate, which has been excellent and good-humoured, as has been said. Surely, however, common sense, if I dare use those two words, should be the judge and jury when determining whether something such as an onshore wind farm is erected. Do we need onshore wind farms to keep the lights on? The answer, in my humble opinion, is no. What we need are new nuclear power stations to keep this country—an island nation—free and independent so that we are not at the mercy of people who import gas and oil, or others. We will be able keep the lights on and tell our constituents that when the lights do go on, they will remain on for the next 10, 20 or 30 years because we have invested in this country’s future. We do not, therefore, need onshore wind farms. With offshore wind farms, the issue is debatable, although I would rather the wind farms were out there, where we cannot hear them, than onshore, where we certainly can.

At this point, I declare a personal interest, before I am hoist with my own petard. A wind company proposed to build 16 giant, 400-metre wind turbines on my land. Between my experience of looking at the issue as a landowner and the experience of those who saw themselves as the opposition—the local residents fighting to stop me—it was an interesting three months. Rather than just throwing the proposal to the wind and saying that I would not consider it, I spent three months looking at it, which included a trip to Germany. Interestingly, the wind farm company said that I was the first landowner ever to ask to go to see a giant turbine. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter), who is in the Chamber, knows all about the proposal because he campaigned against it.

Off I went to see the giant turbines. Four other farmers and I stood 1 km away, 500 metres away and literally on people’s doorsteps. We listened, we asked questions and we learned an awful lot. It is possible to hear these monsters; they make a huge woofing noise. Although there were many other factors, what finally convinced me was a psychiatrist from Denmark who was heavily involved in cases there. I asked him, “If people hear these wind turbines, will it affect their health?” He said, “Richard, the point is, even if they don’t hear them—even if they think they hear them—it will have the same effect as if they do.” That is an interesting point, because people may be affected by something, often when they do not even hear it. Because of the flicker and many other arguments against the proposal I was finally convinced and said to the company, “No, I’m sorry. It is a non-starter.”

Sadly, all the onshore wind farms are, as has been mentioned, in rural constituencies, which are heavily represented here today, and not least in the mountains of Scotland and Wales—some of the most beautiful parts of our country. Let us face it: we live in an island that is overcrowded; with respect to population we are as bad as Malta. There are few areas left in this country where someone can go for a walk and enjoy the beauty of this island.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there are two types of environmental damage: that caused by carbon emissions and that caused by putting wind turbines in some of the most beautiful parts of the country, which will ruin them for ever?

[Richard Drax]

I agree. The argument put to me by the wind company was that wind turbines can be taken down in a day. I suppose that there is a certain argument that a nuclear power station cannot be taken down in a day. It takes decades, so in that sense the statement is true; but there is still a huge concrete plinth stuck in the ground.

My argument is that rather than looking at the issue from a balanced point of view, or any other point of view, we should look at it from the common-sense point of view. I implore the Minister to include wind farm applications in the Localism Bill so that when constituents such as mine in East Stoke stand up and say “We do not want this here” their voices are heard. That is the local issue. As for the national issue, we should apply a little more common sense so that we rebuild our nuclear power stations to keep an independent country where we pay for our own power and are strategically safe and where, most important of all, the lights stay on in the years to come.