Cardiff protest could be “first of many”

 

Jonathan Wilkinson, chairman of Montgomeryshire Against Pylons, said campaigners might need to send further delegations to Cardiff in the coming months to fight proposals for a 20-acre substation and pylons carrying power from planned new windfarms to the National Grid in Shropshire.

 

His warning came as more than 400 people from across Montgomeryshire turned up at a rally at Dolgead Hall, Llanfair, to prepare for the protest march to Cardiff.

 

Mr Wilkinson referred to a report from Welshpool Town Council that said there would be more than 800,000 traffic movements associated with the proposed windfarms, substation and pylons over a period of six years. Of that total, more than 7,500 would be abnormal loads.

 

“Our infrastructure cannot cope with this traffic without major changes,” he said. “We all need to ask big questions about transport that will affect not only tourism but other businesses too.”

 

Meanwhile, a retired chartered engineer Brett Kibble who has been fighting the wandfarms for 19 years, has revealed a startling new statistic which he says shows that the developments are simply not worth it.

  

Mr Kibble has revealed that if 1,000 square miles of wind turbines were imposed on Mid Wales, they would contribute just four per cent of Wales’ renewable energy target. He has also revealed that the efficiency of Mid Wales’ existing windfarms was 23 per cent and warned that 600 feet wind turbines were planned for a new site in Dyfnant Forest.

 

A third campaigner, Mark Bebb, managing director of caravan dealership Salop Leisure, has urged campaigners in both the Severn and Vyrnwy Valleys to remain united and called on Powys County Councillors to put aside politics to fight the proposals together.

 

He warned that the proposals were a serious threat to the £615 million tourism industry of Powys, which supports 6,300 jobs. “We are in a difficult economic climate and one thing the politicians in Cardiff will understand is money and jobs,” he said.

 

Plans for the buses leaving villages across the area will be confirmed this weekend and Richard Bonfield, who is in charge of logistics for the Cardiff rally, said the aim of the protest was to get the Welsh Assembly Government to review the TAN 8 document that identified Mid Wales as a prime location for windfarms.

 

“We are inviting other areas of Wales and Shropshire to come and join us and we hope to have 2,000 people there,” he added. “This is just the start and certainly Cardiff will never have seen anything quite like this.”