VOICE OF THE FENS: Villagers who fought off 19 turbines offer textbook study in opposition
BY THE EDITOR WHO said people power was dead? Opponents of the move by Wisbech Town FC to Lynn Road may have thought so but as Mark Twain might have said reports of its death have been grossly exaggerated. And for evidence you need look no further than t
BY THE EDITOR
WHO said people power was dead? Opponents of the move by Wisbech Town FC to Lynn Road may have thought so but as Mark Twain might have said reports of its death have been grossly exaggerated.
And for evidence you need look no further than the villages in and around Marshland St James who appear, for the time being at least, to have fought off the multi million pound wind turbine industry and scuppered their plans for a massive 19 turbine development on their doorsteps.
You could apply some cynicism to the argument in favour of people power and question some of the methodology of some of those locked into the opposition camps but we, overall, find little to complain of in the campaign run by groups such as FLAT.
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They have shown that a small group of villagers can come together in a common cause and mobilise a campaign to prevent something they didn't ask for, they didn't want, that threatened their way of life, and that they felt was being proposed in the wrong place and at the wrong time.
One can only speculate as to how much the consortium has lost, financially, in this two year battle but there has also been a human cost, too, and the tragedy involving one of the farmers involved with the consortium will not be forgotten easily.
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However that black cloud must not be allowed to overshadow the delight that many villagers will now be expressing with their victory, and who can blame them this weekend if they toast their success?
Whether the consortium dares to come back, as they suggest, with another proposal and at another time remains to be seen.
We suspect not and let's hope we have heard the end of this divisive proposal that, ultimately, offered a textbook study into how alienate an entire community by really trying.
