In the far away north of Scotland, the big landowners at last see a way of making money from their MAMBA (miles and miles of bugger all). They are paid up to £100,000 per turbine which comes from our electricity bills.
In amongst all this MAMBA there are small communities of people, mostly crofting folk, who meet at the pub and the post office / general store and the school, community Hall and the Church. These people come from families who have lived there for generations. It is a place where nothing changes.
But now their landscape is being changed by the slow march of the Wind farms. Every year brings another one - with more beautiful wild landscape ruined.
The people are not happy. When the last one was proposed they wanted to object en masse but were bribed with offers of money from the company.
They feel cheated. It turns out that the wind farm company cannot pay for anything that would normally be provided by the local council. So their payment consists of a few paltry baskets of flowers in the village and a monthly showing of a film in the hall - an insult.
There is now another wind farm proposed and this time there are lots of objections. Sadly we know that Salmond and Sturgeon - our fishy political leaders - will overule any local opinion in the pursuit of their political ideal
We are told that the huge monstrosities will be removed when they come to the end of their very short lives, but it is not hard to imagine that those concerned will be long gone by then (either dead of bankrupt) and they will remain forever as the dreadful legacy of Salmond and Sturgeon - the politicians that ruined Scotland's landscape in the same way that Beeching is remembered for ruining our once wonderful railway system.
This is too bad. In Massachusetts, the town paid for one wind turbine, which eliminated the town's annual utilities bill and lowered town taxes. That way the town got to decide where to put the windmill, and make it part of the town skyline to some degree. Sarah H. Gordon USA
ReplyDelete