Is Wind The Answer?

Experts to debate in St Andrews

Public information event organized by Cameron Community Council

St Andrews Town Hall, 7.15pm 1^st March 2012

Love them or loathe them, wind turbines are coming to Fife. From industrial-scale wind farms to back-garden turbines, Fife is facing a torrent of applications.

Fife Council’s Planning Department is currently looking at hundreds of proposals (1). Storms over wind rage in the local press, and are splitting Community Councils.

Now Cameron Community Council has boldly invited leading experts to St Andrews to debate the pros and cons of wind energy.

“Wind power is a relatively new phenomenon in Fife and many local communities are struggling to understand what it means for them. People are frightened and concerned by the prospect of these turbines”, Cameron Community Council Chairman Gordon Ball said.

“As the wind applications have proliferated, so have our questions. As a Community Council, it’s part of our job to make sure our communities have accurate information about the wind farms and turbines we are being asked to live with.“

Mr Ball explained that the he had invited John Mayhew, the Director of the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland, who addressed a packed audience at Cameron Community Council last summer. Mr Mayhew explained the background to the Government’s plan to make Scotland the “Saudi Arabia of wind’”

“His talk was impressively balanced and informative,” Mr Ball added. “There was no end to the questions from the audience and many people were disappointed to have missed him.”

Mr Ball has now invited experts to St Andrews with huge experience of the impact of wind development across Scotland. “We’re encouraging anyone curious about wind to come to the Town Hall,” said Mr Ball.

There will be a question and answer forum and the meeting is free and open to all.

Joining Mr Mayhew will be Derek Birkett, the former Grid Control Engineer of Northern Scotland and author of When will the lights go out; Scottish MEP Struan Stevenson, who chairs the European Parliament’s Climate Change, Biodiversity & Sustainable Development Intergroup; Dave Bruce, who has wide ranging knowledge on all aspects of wind farm development; and Graham Lang, a local expert on the planning process for wind turbines and co-founder of EFTAG, an internet site which maps all past and present turbine proposals in East Fife.