Can the Lake District landscape fight off Vandal Miliband?
MOST of us are familiar with the magnificent mountains of the central Lake District: Scafell Pike, Helvellyn, the Langdale Pikes and many others. They are mostly surrounded by a superb ring of carboniferous limestone hills just over the 1,000ft elevation mark which may not be so well known. These rocks are 330million to 350million years old. They form escarpments and high pastures with rare flora and fauna, occasional limestone pavements plus untouched open country at places such as Uldale, Caldbeck, Hutton Roof, Berrier, Askham Fell, Crosby Ravensworth and Whitbarrow Scar in the South Lakes.
From this limestone ring, one can look in towards the Lake District older slate and volcanic mountains, and outwards to the Solway Firth, Southern Scotland, the Pennines, the Eden valley, the Howgill fells near Sedbergh, and Morecambe Bay.
The landscape value and views from the limestone escarpment are superlative, irreplaceable, of intangible value and beauty. Here is the view from Crosby Ravensworth:
and here from Askham Fell.
These hills are mostly free from industrial turbines, thank God, but we now have a so-called ‘Energy Secretary’ who wishes to cover our green and pleasant land in pointless turbines. He will target these limestone hills, and we have to stop his vandalism.
Turbines are pointless because for every one installed, it is necessary to have duplicate generative back-up from coal, gas or nuclear sources for when the turbines are ineffective, which is much of the time. The need for back-up and grid redundancy negates the point of turbines, and it means we pay twice.
The only winners are landowners and wind company directors who make more money from harvesting subsidy than they do from selling electricity, as this and other sites have documented repeatedly.
If the aim is to catch the wind, one could ask ‘Why not cover the Helvellyn ridge or the Scafell massif with turbines?’ ‘You can’t do that,’ everyone will say, even those within the wind companies, ‘the landscape value is too great.’ If the central Lake District fells are no-go areas, why should the beautiful limestone perimeter with equally good landscape value and views be treated any differently? And who is going to be the arbiter of the degree of beauty which may not be despoiled?
In the 2000s an array of turbines was proposed for Berrier Hill, part of the limestone escarpment between Greystoke and Saddleback/Blencathra. This is part of the site, with the misty Pennines in the far distance.
The vigorous opposition was spearheaded by local mountaineers Doug Scott and Sir Chris Bonington, and the plans were defeated in 2010, though at great expense.
Scott and Bonington campaigning in 2006. Photo by the author
The two main Lake District constituencies with limestone hills at risk from Miliband’s wind activism are Penrith and Solway, and Westmorland and Lonsdale.
Penrith and Solway was won on July 4by Labour’s Markus Campbell-Savours, whose much-respected father Dale, former MP for Workington, is now in the House of Lords. The Conservative vote collapsed, but Markus polled less than the Conservative-Reform cohort combined.
Westmorland and Lonsdale was won comprehensively by Liberal Tim Farron, a popular constituency MP. Again the Conservative vote collapsed but even including the Reform cohort, Farron won with a huge majority of 21,472. I have been in touch with him about the risk of turbines spreading on the limestone hills and this is his reply:
Dear David
Thank you for your recent email regarding your concerns about renewable energy. Many people, including myself, greatly support renewable energy for two key reasons:
• Renewable energy represents the cleanest option available with our current scientific and technological capabilities. By harnessing natural energy sources, it generates minimal emissions. For instance, solar panels simply absorb sunlight to produce energy.
• Renewable energy is significantly cheaper than burning fossil fuels. Extracting fossil fuels requires extensive mining, drilling and burning, resulting in high operating costs, even if the initial price is relatively low. In contrast, renewable energy has very low operating costs since the energy collected typically doesn’t require additional processing.
I can assure you that coal is the most inefficient form of energy production, and there is [sic] powerful reasons as to why the UK has phased out its use. Ultimately, renewable and nuclear energy are the only routes to achieving Net Zero and protecting the earth for our children and grandchildren.
Unfortunately, I think I will have to respectfully disagree on your views on the matter.
With best wishes
Yours sincerely
Tim Farron MP
Both constituencies have dramatically and demographically changed in recent years. The influx of southern retirees, many on index-linked state sector pensions, relatively entitled and privileged people with Liberal or Socialist tendencies, second-homers registered locally – all have diluted the indigenous Cumbrian and Westmerian Conservatives. Of course on July 4 2024, the Conservatives did all they could to commit ritual suicide almost as if they wished to lose the election.
The two largest Lake District Parliamentary constituencies
It seems there is not a cigarette paper of difference between the Labour and Liberal energy policies. In fact only the Reform party has a sensible energy policy based on real-world economics. Both Campbell-Savours and Farron will now be in a position where they will have to protect the landscapes of their constituencies (we hope) yet also follow the net zero decarbonisation and so-called ‘renewable’ policies of their political parties backed by many of their constituents. This is surely going to give both of them serious cognitive dissonance.
The Lake District, the first and finest National Park in England, was established in the early 1950s. The Park is now a ‘World Heritage Site’, but even this may not be enough to save it. It would be one of the most horrific and wanton acts of vandalism to cover these limestone hills in turbines. Turbines are optional, the landscape is not, and it must be saved for future generations rather than being sacrificed on the altar of ‘nut-zero’ – an aspiration that is physically and economically impossible to achieve anyway.
Eycott hill and the limestone hills of Berrier and Hutton Roof, located east of Blencathra and viewed looking north from Great Mell Fell. Photo by the author
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