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Devastatingly sad news

Categories: 

The massive Robert McAlpine Group has announced it intends to submit new wind turbine proposals to be called Swift wind farm, near Churchover.

A community meeting will be called soon to discuss what we should do.

In the interim any queries or support should be sent to info@aswar.org.uk

ASWAR became aware back in November that somebody was snooping around again, but not wanting to send the local property market into a downward spiral we did not publicise our concerns.  We asked the Rugby Borough Council planners to pass on to the developers a letter (similar to that below) to give them fair warning. Unfortunately the subsidiary of the Robert McAlpine Group has ignored our friendly advice :-

Do let them know that:

1) Over 90% of the community was actively against the SSE proposal.

2) A well organised, disciplined and well led Action Group is still in existence with funds in hand, with a well designed website, see www.aswar.org.uk and a renowned local planning consultant living in the village.

3) The Action Group has shown its ability to organise well attended rallys and protests (for example over 80 people demonstrated on the Rugby Town Hall steps one cold January evening) and is not afraid to take on another windfarm developer. Over the past three years the Group has developed good relationships with other local and national leaders and politicians fighting windfarms.

4) They should be aware that the majority group on the Rugby planning committee gained an unanimous rejection of the SSE proposal ( two Councillors abstained) and if anything, the local councillors will be now, 18 months on, even more decisive in their rejection of a windfarm in the Warwickshire heritage beauty spot of the Swift Valley with it’s historic ridge and furrow and flood plain, overlooked by a listed, 1000 year old church, within a conservation area village that already has an encroaching windfarm skyline from Shawell to Gilmorton.

5) The localism bill has shifted the balance in favour of communities that are organised and reject windfarms and though the recently announced, three-fold increase in renewable subsidy to £7.5 billion a year might sound an attractive proposition to pluck from out of families electricity bills, they can be assured it is a chimera as far as Churchover is concerned.

6) Finally it will not be long before Rugby Council catches up with other Councils around the UK and puts in place a set-back distance so its inhabitants are protected from the well documented and peer-reviewed health hazards and sleep deprivation associated with windfarms around the world and the reduction in house values that so many residents are reliant on for their standard of living particularly as they go into retirement and their pensions are found to be wanting.

Thank you for offering to give a copy of this email to the prospective developers so they know they will have a real fight on their hands with the whole community of Churchover and the surrounding villages. We have the experience of seeing SSE ignore our initial warning that Churchover would fight tooth and nail. They thought with their size and expensive lawyers they could crush us but were forced subsequently to withdraw with a harmed brand around Rugby and wasted costs. A second fight will be even better organised and informed.