It would be a dark day for all those who care about the remarkable landscape we are lucky to call home should the proposed Hope Moor Wind Farm be granted permission.
Opposition to the proposal – joined by the D&S Times – is not about being anti-progress, or about denying the need for greener forms of energy generation. It is about making sure such schemes are sited appropriately and do not cause irreparable harm to precious environments such as the wild and wonderful moors on the borders of North Yorkshire and County Durham.
What is “green” about transporting vast amounts of concrete, cables and gravel onto a remote moortop and then depositing them on peatlands full of fragile habitats? And then there is the logistical headache of getting the components for the 200m high turbines to the site itself. It just makes no sense and has provoked understandable indignation in surrounding communities – but then again, it wouldn’t be the first time campaigners here have fought against the industrialisation of the countryside at the behest of big business. And lest we forget, people come from all over the world to this corner of the UK to enjoy all that our two National Parks offer.
Three decades ago, the Government gave the go-ahead to a line of 180ft pylons carrying massive power cables from an Enron power station on Teesside to Shipton, north of York – a route that scythed through the Vale of York, including the farm where I grew up at Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton. The final approval followed two public inquiries, 8,500 objections and a bitter ten-year dispute.
In the end National Grid won out, and the pylons were built – steel monstrosities that sizzle and hum in the damp air, destroying the peace and dwarfing everything in the surrounding landscape.
Stand on the little bridge over Cod Beck at the foot of Sigston’s gentle slopes, and where once we used to fish for minnows as children, or watch the dairy herd head out to graze after milking, now we are overshadowed by grim, grey metal, all sharp angles and hissing energy.
One of the giant pylons stands just a few feet away from the bridge. I no longer pause there to enjoy the view, and I doubt anyone else does who either lives nearby, or passes through. Even the historic views across the valley from the altar windows at 12th Century St Lawrence Church are now bisected by lines of thick wiring.
The arguments made about these pylons all those years ago feel uncomfortably similar to those being made now about Hope Moor – and the wind turbines planned there are three-and-a-half times higher.
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Once again, it is suggested that the wider good might outweigh local concern. Once again, the scale of what is proposed risks overwhelming the landscape. And once again, those who know the land best are being asked to accept changes for the worse that will last for decades.
As a rural newspaper rooted in our communities – and knowing the lasting impact of such huge developments – the D&S cannot stand aside. Our role is not simply to report what is happening, but to reflect the strength of feeling that exists across our readership.
Our Save Hope Moor campaign is not a rejection of renewable energy. It is a call for balance. For sensitivity. For genuine engagement with the people who will live with the consequences long after the planning process – taken out of local hands – has finished. And for a complete rethink about how we protect our countryside so future generations can enjoy it, as we have.
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