Locals Brits in rural north Allerdale are complaining about a proposed solar panel farm to be built in their neighborhood. Residents say they do not want the energy facility in their area because it will negatively affect their quality of life.
The solar panel park, to include some 50,000 panels, is planned for Pasture Farm, a site just outside the city of Westnewton near Aspatria.
But in a perfect example of NIMBY, or “Not in My Backyard,” residents are not happy with the announced development. Locals say that the large facility will destroy their picturesque, rural community. They are also concerned that the development will cause health problems for locals.
Local protester John Ryden, of Lane Ends, Westnewton, is unhappy with the plans. “Given the recent construction of the Warwick Hall windfarm close to the proposed site, this development would represent further industrialisation in an area that has never featured in any local plan as development land,” he says.
“For solar developers to target Cumbria for solar parks is ridiculous. Any local resident might describe the area as windy but never as sunny or bright.”
The opposition has taken developers by surprise. Livos Energy says that the solar panel park will be a short-term project lasting only 25 years, after which the area will be returned to the condition in which developers found it.
At least one local politician, though, has no objections to the development.
David Wilson, Aspatria’s district councilor, states, “All you will see is a thin blue line which will look like a lavender field. Solar panels are a lot better than wind turbines.”
Britons are not the only folks opposed to the erection of massive “green energy” facilities in their own backyards. Well-to-do residents of Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod, and Nantucket Sound, Massachusetts, including Robert F. Kennedy, spent years fighting to stop a wind farm called Cape Wind, a facility to be erected five miles offshore.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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