I ENJOYED seeing your reader John Clements photo entitled “After the Storm” in the Gazette, which was of a spectacular view taken from the Bredon Hills looking across the Avon and Severn Valleys to the entire profile of the Malvern Hills range.

I have read that such views are often used in promotional material to encourage tourism in the area.

Indeed, I understand the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Beauty Partnership commissioned report on how best to protect views of the Malverns such as this, the report concluding that the view from the Bredon Hill to the Malverns was exceptional, urging planning authorities to protect the whole of this valley landscape as if it was an AONB.

I hope the planners at Tewkesbury Borough Council will take note of this recommendation when they make a decision on the current planning application on whether to allow the first wind farm in the area, to be situated on the Worcestershire and Gloucestershire borders at Strensham.

If it goes ahead views such as those taken by Mr Clements will be lost.

The plan is to erect three industrial sized turbines each 415 ft high together with a 220 ft high lattice wind measurement mast.

These monolithic sized constructions will be seen by many residents and communities looking into and out of the Bredon, Malvern and North Cotswold AONBs.

Conservation areas will be affected, one of the most significant being the internationally significant Croome Court and Park, currently the subject of considerable investment by the National Trust and experiencing thousands of visitors a year, it being Capability Browns first significant work.

Ironically, next to Mr Clements’ picture was a letter from Julian Roskams expressing concern about the increasing number of elderly falling into fuel poverty.

Part of the problem of increasing electricity bills is the ever growing renewable energy tariff included in the small print of our electricity bills, an element of which goes to subsidising wind farms and the Governments dogmatic approach to building on shore wind farms at cost to the consumer and protection of our landscapes.

There is a clear case for renewable energy where installations are effective and in harmony with the environment and this area has a part to play. The future of renewable energy across this quintessential world famous English landscape immortalised by Sir Edward Elgar remains very much as it did in the past.

Our ancestors soon realised the inefficiency of wind power due to its intermittency and turned to water power. Like our ancestors we have the rivers Severn and Avon plus their tributaries to play their part in our districts renewable future, not inefficient and oversubsidised windmills which despoil our countryside, an investment for which we are going to have to pay for again by building alternative back up resources to cover the periods when the windmills lie dormant at times of high pressure or high winds when they are shut down for safety reasons.

As for Mr Clements, please go and take some more photos of these exceptional views looking both out from the Bredons to the Malverns and vice versa, the opportunity to experience such uninterrupted views in the future are limited if the current wind farm plans with Tewkesbury Borough Council are passed.

ROBIN JONES
Ripple