FORMER COUNCILLOR VOICES DOUBTS OVER ECO-FRIENDLY BOASTS OF WIND POWER INDUSTRY

Windfarm off  Spurn, on the Yorkshire Coast. Are turbines as planet-friendly as developers claim?

A FORMER North East Lincolnshire councillor has voiced doubts on the much-proclaimed eco-friendly credentials of wind power.

At a  meeting of the Grimsby branch of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, John Stockton spoke of his dismay at what he encountered when he visited an offshore development - mangled corpses of "guillemots, gannets and Manx shearwaters.

He went on to query whether they were as planet-friendly as the industry professes given the amount of energy required to manufacture, transport, install and maintain the turbines.

Mr Stockton, formerly UKIP representative for the South ward, made his observation at the end of  a presentation by Paul Learoyd, chief executive of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.

Mr Learoyd acknowledged that windfarms were a controversial subject, voicing his own misgivings about the prospect of new wind developments in Scotland doing harm to carbon-capturing peat moors.

Earlier in his fascinating presentation, held at Grimsby Town Hall, the chief executive provided a whistlestop tour of how the Trust has gone from strength to strength over the course of its 70 years. 

Paul Learoyd - Trust supremo

He described the red squirrel as “one that got away”. Up until the 1970s, it was still breeding at Lynwood, near Market Rasen, but, as in most of the rest of the UK, it failed to survive disease and the onset of the larger and hardier grey squirrel.

Paul cited the red squirrel as example of a species where choices about nature conservation are on the horns of a dilemma.

There is a colony in pines on the Lancashire coast. But pines are not native to this part of England. If they were to be removed, the red squirrels would also be lost but  it would open up the dunes, offering prospects of a return for an even scarcer species, the nattterjack toad.

Paul lamented the loss, through disease, of almost all of Lincolnshire’s elm trees. He feared, too, that a similar fate beckoned for 75 per cent of the county’s ash trees.

However, he hoped that prospects might be  better for species such as oak, beech, silver birch and some varieties of cherry.

In response to a question from the audience, the chief noted there was a lot of talk from politicians, about planting millions of trees, but not so much about the species or the location. “Important grassland could be at risk,” he warned.

At its HQ in Horncastle, the Trust  has a trove of photographs from yesteryear.

Many were taken at Gibraltar Point - for instance, the first bird-ringing station, scenes from shooting of The Dambusters film and even a visit in 1974 from 19-year-old Patricia Orfila, Gibraltar’s entry in the Miss World contest.

Miss Gibraltar - visited observatory

Over the years, David Attenborough seems to have been a regular visitor to Gib, not least because he had a friendship with the late Ted Smith, a great pioneer of the nature conservation movement in Lincolnshire and beyond.

There have been  many battles along the way. For instance, Malcolm Campbell wanted the sands given over not to providing nesting habitat for little terns, but to a track for setting on-land speed records.

Paul  described the Trust's longstanding initiatives with little terns, with safeguarding breeding grey  seals at Donna Nook and in protecting wildflower-rich roadside verges.

Seals at Donna Nook - as many as 7,000 animals (adults and pups) currently in residence

He also expressed concerns about current river management practices and the loss of important flood plains to housing and other development.

Although there is a widespread clamour for intensified river dredging, this only hastens the flow, worsening downstream flood risk.

An example was the episode in June this year when 50 homes flooded in Wainfleet and Thorpe St Peter in Lincolnshire.

As a result, five members of the  Trust's staff had to leave their homes for two weeks.

The event included, during the interval, festive refreshments supplied by members.

It concluded with a presentation of a £1000 cheque from the Grimsby branch to the Trust to further its important work.

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* Available now as a Kindle ebook:

A Fault to Nature: Birds, Migration and The Problem  with Windfarms