Greater Wellington regional Councillor, Chris Laidlaw in his article in the (Dominion Post 10 October) notes that “There has been much huffing and puffing during the past year or so over wind-farming in this country.” 

 

If anyone is “huffing and puffing” it is Cr Laidlaw as he tries to put a different spin on wind farm projects by suggesting that smaller turbines could be a way to win over the public. Maybe they could, but the reality is that Greater Wellington Regional Council never did all their homework. They have kicked up a storm by trying to put wind farms in public reserves and now must deal with the consequences. 

 

GWRC started with the Puketiro wind farm thinking that it would cause the least fuss – that they could slip it under the radar – before turning their hand to Belmont, well aware that a Belmont wind farm is likely to be even more contentious. But they took no account of the residents of Pauatahanui / Judgeford / Moonshine and Whitby who will, if GWRC gets their way, have to live under a wind farm.

 

In his article Cr Laidlaw is derogatory about the local groups opposing wind farms, calling them / us?? “the tiny minority pathologically opposed”, people “who hate the sight of what they regard as industrial abominations on our landscape and who see themselves as neighbourhood saviours against the rapacious energy developers intent on laying an ugly blanket of turbines over every available ridge and promontory.” 

 

The fact is that wind turbines such as those proposed for Puketiro are industrial machines and as the editor of the International Wind Power Magazine “Wind Power Monthly” in 1998 said “Too often the public has felt duped into envisioning fairy tale “parks” in the countryside. The reality has been an abrupt awakening. Wind power stations are no parks.” 

 

The kind of rhetoric used by Cr Laidlaw in his article is hardly conducive to effective debate nor, does it show a Councillor willing to listen to the concerns of communities who pay their rates and elect the Councillors to represent them.