In April, I had reason to visit the Lancashire town of Bury. The tram from Manchester provided a picturesque view of beautiful hills. The hills were dotted with wind turbines. Far from being ugly, they struck me as being just as beautiful as the hills on which they sat, as symbols of sustainability, living in tune with nature and the environment.
It is now widely accepted that this is what we will need to see on a massive scale if we are to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and increase our energy security by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. It is therefore a travesty that the only place in England where the turbines are made is threatened with closure.
Vestas has announced that the plants in the Southampton and on the Isle of Wight will close in the very near future, citing a lack of demand in the UK. Between them, these plants support 600 jobs. The Government has promised massive investments in renewable energy. Yet local MP John Denham has said that the Government are not interested in intervening to keep the Vestas plant open.
The Government has spared no expense in stepping in to rescue the banks and the car companies; Northern Rock alone took £55bn, whilst billions more were spent on others. Through the regional development agencies, the Government has also subsidised airport expansion by £80mn over the last ten years. Recently it has renationalised the East Coast Main Line after National Express gave up on it. For around £50mn, it could take over the Vestas plant and keep it open with a view to finding another buyer, just as the Scottish Exectutive stepped in to save a much smaller turbine plant from closure.
This could be the first step on a Green New Deal of the kind that the Green Party are proposing. A national programme insulating all homes, installing large scale renewables, and providing comprehensive public transport across the country would create millions of green jobs, and stimulate our economy by growing the industries of the future. Currently, the UK skills gap in these sectors means that Britain is falling behind other countries in the creation of green jobs. Even China, frequently stereotyped as a 'dirty polluter', is ahead of the UK in renewable energy.
The most frequent objection to wind farms is that they spoil the view. Yet in discussions of energy policy, opponents of wind farms frequently propose nuclear power and coal-burners instead. I'll leave you to decide whether nuclear or coal plants are less intrusive than wind turbines. Both, however, rely on finite resources, and both produce unwanted waste products, in the form of CO2 or nuclear waste. Wind power and other renewables face neither of these constraints.
In order to tackle the parallel economic and environmental crises, we need to get serious about renewable energy now, and this starts by keeping our local wind turbine plant open.
Chris Bluemel,
Green Party, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Southampton Test
