The subsidy parasites have my paradise firmly in their sights

My main creative endeavour at present is writing some new lyrics for Joni Mitchell’s 1970 song “Big Yellow Taxi”, under the working title of “Huge White Turbine”.

Her line “They paved paradise to put up a parking lot” has been running through my head ever since I learnt on Friday that the wind power industry has got my own small Northumberland parish of Callaly in its sights.

We have kept it a selfish little secret up to now, I admit, but Callaly is the nearest thing I have ever found to an earthly paradise. Indeed, I have wasted years trying to adapt the lyrics of “Camelot” to reflect my belief that there's simply not a more congenial spot for happily-ever-aftering than here in … well, you see my challenge.

At the heart of its appeal is the ravishing unspoilt beauty of the countryside. The first time I saw the view of the Cheviots from what was to become my house it literally took my breath away.

A few days later, driving along the single track road from Trewhitt Hall to Yetlington, Elgar’s Nimrod blasting out of the car stereo, I formed the unshakeable conviction that this was the very best England (and, therefore, by extension, the world) had to offer.

Now, not far from this very road, there falls the colossal, flickering shadow of a proposed wind turbine. But, not to worry, it’s only a “medium sized” single machine, not a “commercial” farm of behemoths.

“Medium sized” in this context means 78m or, in English, 256ft tall. To put it another way, around four times the height of the Angel of the North. Its installation, according to the consultants promoting it, will “allow the adjacent farm business to operate in a more environmentally and financially sustainable manner”.

Well, hurrah for that. No one could surely begrudge a poor farmer whacking up a modest windmill in his farmyard to help light his sheep shed when the wind is blowing at the right speed. But you don’t need a 78m turbine in open countryside to do that.

In reality, this is a moneymaking development designed to harvest the rich subsidies available for “renewable energy” at the expense of every electricity consumer in the country.

I suppose we should be grateful that the new generation of Border reivers descend upon us with slick Powerpoint presentations rather than broadswords, but what really sticks in my gullet is the pretence that they aren’t in this for the loot, but to do us all a favour.

Indeed, the planning application for the Follions Folly (my name, not theirs), which may be savoured on the Northumberland County Council planning website, ref. 12/03857/RENE , notes that they have not bothered to consult the local community before submitting their proposal because “the production of renewable energy is considered an overriding benefit to the wider area.”

Indeed, so eager were they to avoid consultation or scrutiny that they slid their planning application in on the Friday before Christmas with the result that it took us dozy yokels a full six weeks even to spot it. Another fortnight and it would have been too late to object and so very easy to claim: “See, they all love it!”

Not so fast, my friends. It simply cannot be right for large industrial turbines to be erected in remote and beautiful locations on the fringes of the National Park. I say this not in a spirit of Nimbyism but because the unspoilt landscape of Northumberland is simply the greatest asset the county possesses, and conniving in its wilful desecration is the biggest mistake this generation could possibly make.

Reading the planning application, I kept hearing the voice of Mrs Doyle urging Father Ted, “Go on, go on, go on. It’s a micro turbine!”

"Sure, Father, you won't even notice it!"

But it’s not. And if this Folly slips through the planning net, experience elsewhere in the county suggests that the vultures will be back for more.

I will be keeping some of Joni’s words in my new song: “Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone.”

Though I have my fingers crossed that, in this instance, paradise may yet be saved. 

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Since this column was written, I have been informed by my local county councillor that the deadline for public consultation on the proposed Follions wind turbine has been extended until THURSDAY, 7 MARCH and that a case officer has been allocated to deal with the application. Objections (or indeed letters of support) may be sent to him at Joe.Nugent@northumberland.gov.uk or by letter to:

Joe Nugent

Senior Planner

Northumberland County Council

County Hall

Morpeth

Northumberland

NE61 2EF

There is a special meeting of the Whittingham, Callaly and Alnham parish council to discuss the proposal at Whittingham Village Hall at 7.30pm on FRIDAY, 15 FEBRUARY, which residents of these and neighbouring parishes are invited to attend.

Good luck!

Why dearer booze and free news are both seriously bad ideas

The proudest moment of my life was opening last Friday’s Journal and finding myself described by former Fleet Street editor David Banks as a “journalist”.

Up until then I had thought of myself as simply a misplaced PR man with an unprofitable hobby.

It is entirely typical that I should finally gain this longed-for recognition just when journalism is under a three-pronged attack of unprecedented ferocity.

First from the internet, and the growing assumption that all news and comment should be available instantaneously, and completely free of charge.

Secondly from the alliance of crime victims and celebrities who would impose tighter regulation, backed by statute, on the printed media. Just when the floodgates of the worldwide web stand open to disseminate limitless quantities of tittle-tattle and misinformation with almost zero prospect of correction or redress.

And finally from the threat to impose minimum pricing on the hack’s traditional relief and recreation: alcohol.

Let me deal with the last first. Apparently we all need to pay more for our booze because the centres our major cities have been made a “living hell” by cheap drink.

Really? Might it not have more to do with the halfwitted decision to abolish traditional opening hours, and the oversight of licensing by magistrates, in the vain hope of creating a sophisticated “continental café culture” rather than having the young lying around the streets in pools of their own vomit?

Not that it is just Yoof that Nanny cares about. According to campaigners, this more expensive drink will also “save the lives” of 50,000 pensioners over 10 years and massively reduce the burden on the NHS.

Except that, in the real world, those pensioners will surely die of something else that will almost certainly prove every bit as expensive to treat.

On this logic, we should also be imposing massive new price hikes on food to counter obesity, and on skis, horses, motorbikes and rugby balls to save the NHS from treating the resultant accidental injuries.

There are already laws against serving alcohol to those who have plainly consumed enough, and against being drunk and incapable or disorderly. Just as there are laws against the unlawful interception of communications through phone hacking.

Rather than holding inquiries and adding more pages to the already bulging statute book, why not first have a try at enforcing the laws we have already got?

Meanwhile the relentlessly increasing domination of nearly all our lives (not you, Auntie Leslie) by the internet makes the attempt to impose fresh rules on newspapers as relevant as the actions of those courtiers who egged on poor old King Canute to plonk himself in the path of the rising tide.

Yes, I know they call him King Cnut these days, but I couldn't risk a misprint

We need a free and unfettered press that asks awkward questions, highlights injustices and exposes wrongdoers, without outrageously invading the privacy of those who have never sought to be public figures, or otherwise breaking the law. For that to happen, we also need people willing to pay a few pence each day for a newspaper or its online equivalent.

Becoming a writer was my lifelong ambition, in admittedly lazy recognition of the fact that stringing words together is the only small talent I possess. I am delighted that it is now easier than ever before to get my work published; but considerably less happy that it is also increasingly difficult to make any money by doing so.

Yes, there are J.K. Rowling and that woman who wrote Fifty Shades of Grey, but they are to the mass of authors as lottery jackpot winners are to the other mugs who fork out for a ticket.

In my ideal world, reasonably priced alcohol would be served principally by responsible landlords who would ring a closing bell at 10.30 or 11pm, and send home before then anyone who was clearly the worse for wear.

Those patrons who were not engaged in conversation or traditional pub games would while away their evenings happily reading newspapers, or perhaps my latest book.

The really sad thing is that, well within living memory, something very like that earthly paradise actually existed, and it is never coming back.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.