After years of campaigning and activities by local members, a wind farm at Scout Moor in the North West finally became active in September. So long and protracted was the battle that it looked for a long time as though the farm would not go ahead. The first meeting took place in 2003 and public opinion was heavily against the development. A local environmental tutor secured local support against the farm and undertook to lobby Rochdale Council on behalf of local people.
All three of the local grey parties supported the campaign and no one dared to come forward in support of the wind farms. Rallies, led by the famous conservationist David Bellamy, went up the moors in order to mark the opposition. I kept the campaign alive by writing a few articles in support of the windfarms in the Rochdale Observer. Time inevitably dragged on to a Public Enquiry.
This took place in December 2004. I persuaded Graeme McIver, the Green Party parliamentary candidate of adjacent Rossendale, to join me in support of the wind farms. There was also an environmentalist from adjacent Ramsbottom. Although there was a lot of support for preventing the wind farms at the Public Enquiry, we made our presentations and were challenged. We defended ourselves by highlighting the case for better local and global environment, less pollution and better public health.
We were probably more shocked than the anti-wind farm lobby when the Public Enquiry went in our favour in 2005. The construction firm Nordex, who had much experience of building wind farms in Germany, was given the job of constructing 26 turbines, each 60m in height with 40m long blades, generating 65 megawatts of electricity sufficient to light up half the houses in Rochdale. The annual carbon dioxide replaced annually will be 162,000 tonnes.
Ironically Peel Energy, who bought the Scout Moor wind farm from United Utilities, did not invite any Green Party activists when the wind turbines were switched on. But the councillors of all three main political parties, who fought the wind farms so hard, were invited guests.
Bearing in mind all the opposition and isolation, I felt that the Green Party’s name should be inscribed on those turbine blades!
www.manchestergreenparty.org.uk
