Meeting with Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat MP for
North Devon
Also in the photo is Alex Tutton (Sticklepath and Roundswell
News)
From the walk diary
"At Fremington Quay, I met
another friend. This time I did stop, and we went
into the cafe and had some tea, which was very
welcome. As we came out, Alex Tutton from the
Sticklepath and Roundswell News. arrived, with our local
North Devon MP, Nick Harvey, who has been so supportive to
the group fighting against the Fullabrook Down Wind Power
Proposal. We went out onto the Quay and looked across the
Taw to the hills on the other side. Fullabrook Down Wind
farm is almost a misnomer as a name: it covers such a vast
area, from the hills above Braunton, up the hills near
Ilfracombe.
In the
photo on the right we are looking across at the
"Fullabrook" hills. We could see Ashford and Heanton
Punchardon, and behind them the range of hills where the
turbines would be. Now that I have been to
Bradworthy, I felt a shiver of anxiety for the people who
live in that area. The houses nestle in little valleys,
with the turbines on the ridges above them, totally
dominated by them and vulnerable to all the worst effects
of noise and infrasound." (June 2007 note - this month a
family in Lincolnshire had to abandon their house
completely because they could no longer live with the
noise the turbines near them made)
"The
Roundswell
and Sticklepath News is a free magazine that is delivered
every month to homes in the area. They had put an article
in their first issue about the walk, and Alex Tutton
wanted to interview both Nick and I about
the subject of wind farms in this area. Nick Harvey said
that he was against putting large wind turbines in the
countryside, especially beautiful countryside like that of
North Devon. He agreed that there were better and more
efficient forms of renewable energy. If you had to have
wind turbines, he suggested that there were places such as
ports (like Rotterdam in Holland) where they were far less
obtrusive. We mentioned how moved we had been by the
plight of the people fighting the Fullabrook Down proposal
- this threat has been hanging over their heads since
1992. Each time the wind farm has been refused the
developers have come back again with yet a larger
proposal."
Here is a link to Nick Harvey`s website
And a link to the Roundswell and Sticklepath News
And here is Fremington Quay, and as
I took this the sun was about to come out, and suddenly it
became a nice day.
For the rest of the walk, after I had said goodbye to Nick
and Alex go to
this page
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