Friday 27 September 2013

No wind power but plenty of hot air!

Today we have found out that ‘Partnership for Renewals’ (PfR) will now only be putting in an application for one wind turbine to be built to the South West of Ipswich.

The turbine that was to be built on Ipswich Borough Council land will not happen. This means that IBC will not raise any revenue from renting the land – disappointing when we have just heard of the massive cuts to local council funding planned by the Tory and Lib Dem government.

Local Tory councillor, Nadia Cenci has (recently) campaigned hard against the building of the turbines and states that the decision today is a ‘partial’ if welcome victory.

When asked if the campaign will continue against the other planned turbine (to be built on the land owned by the family of a Suffolk Tory MP) she seems slightly less committed.

Local Ipswich Tory activist, Kevin Algar informs us that he will continue campaigning against the turbine but Nadia seems less sure, she (in a comment on Ipswich Spy here) seems to imply that the people of Wherstead could have campaigned harder and because they didn’t we should not just look at PfR to wonder why the scheme is still going ahead. But if it is within her jurisdiction she will help!

Not sure jurisdiction matters? She is either a Judge or an MP, and can campaign where ever she likes, of course Mr Gummer did not seem keen to answer the question- ‘was he for or against’ the turbines – quoting that it was up to Babergh District Council – maybe he should have told his own Tory members this, who kept asking IBC questions. But as the turbine could be seen by Ipswich residents, should he not be allowed to comment?

A few months later he seemed to be happy to be quoted about the state of Colchester Hospital.

Now getting back to Nadia Cenci, the Tory councillor for Stoke Park, Ipswich Spy had this to say about her:

Councillor Nadia Cenci, who has campaigned for years against plans to build a wind turbine on Ipswich Borough Council land – despite her own administration supporting it. She always states that she was standing up for her residents, rather than following some party line that she didn’t believe in.

Now this I find strange and it seems, Ipswich Spy has turned into a Tory election leaflet produced on behalf of Cllr Cenci rather than a neutral political blog.
If she did not agree with the turbines, why did she not resign from the executive like her fellow North West Tory councillors did over the agreement to build on the Northern Fringe?

Now I do believe that Cllr Cenci did question her fellow Tory executive members when the agreement was signed – But (unless I am wrong- and I have no evidence to believe I am) she did not at the time inform her constituents that her administration were planning to have a turbine built on IBC land that they would see from their homes? She did not produce a survey or canvass public opinion. None of that happened until she became a member of the opposition.

Of course is not only the Tories who are sending out mixed messages about the need for wind turbines, according to local Tories it was their coalition partners, the Ipswich Lib Dems who were the keenest to have a turbine built – then once the plan becomes public we have a Babergh Lib Dem Cllr advocating civil disobedience in the campaign to stop the turbines being built.

Today we had Mr Gummer use his local paper column to inform us that the lights may go out in the UK, not because of the brave scheme promoted by Ed Miliband this week that would see energy prices frozen but because there has been a lack of thought put into building new power stations, but this is where the Tories have a major problem- they are the NIMBY party, they are the party of ‘climate change deniers’ and it seems Cameron and Gummer- who were happy to promote their green credentials before the last General Election are now afraid to say anything (scared of UKIP?)

Maybe they (and Nadia) should read fully the UN report published today – UN ‘95% sure’ humans cause warning.

If they did they may have been happy to see one, two or even more turbines built near South West Ipswich. Not all Tories are against wind turbines, even locally – when she was in the Executive, Tory Judy Terry had one built in Christchurch Park – trouble is that one never worked!

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