An advertising watchdog has withdrawn its damning ruling over a wind farm protest leaflet and admitted it should never have investigated in the first place.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) had ruled a leaflet distributed by Fenland Landscape Against Turbines (FLAT) over a proposed wind farm in Marshland St James was misleading and untruthful.

West Norfolk borough councillor and wind farm opposer David Markinson forced an embarrassing U-turn on the ruling when he pointed out the investigation was outside of the ASA's authority because it was published ahead of a parish referendum on the turbines and was openly intended to influence the vote.

The ASA spent six months investigating a complaint over the leaflet – do you want wind turbines built on land within or surrounding Marshland St James? – but has now withdrawn its findings, issued last week.

ASA spokesman Olivia Campbell said: "It was a genuine and honest mistake."

The revelation is the latest in the bitter battle that has boiled since Marshland Windfarm's plans for 19 turbines first emerged in 2006.

In May 2007 an 85-metre test mast was felled and two weeks later a landowner involved in the scheme, Richard Herbert, tragically committed suicide as unrest over it mounted.

There have since been numerous claims from each side of attacks on their properties and public meetings over the plans have been called off or held with tight security because of a perceived risk of violence.

Marshland Windfarm, which is now finalising its formal application to Government for the wind farm, had claimed the ASA's ruling discredited the results of last October's referendum over the plans.

Following the ASA backtrack, Councillor Markinson said: "Three quarters of voters were firmly against the building of these turbines and they are not going to have their votes discredited by the Advertising Standards Authority or anyone else."

A statement issued by FLAT accused Marshland Windfarm of being responsible for the "waste of taxpayers' money spent on the investigation" by bringing the complaint.

Bruce Pittingale, spokesman for Marshland Windfarm, said: "Although the ASA has now ruled that the FLAT leaflet falls outside its jurisdiction the fact remains that the information was found to be and still is exaggerated, misleading and untruthful."

By Louise Brain, © Lynn News 19th Sept. 2008

The Advertising Standards Authority’s decision to censure npower over carbon offset claims for the Batsworthy Cross wind farm has opened a can of worms for the wind industry.

The watchdog ruled that the standard industry figure of 860g of CO2 per kilowatt hour
overstates the benefits of wind farms.

Click the PDF icon to read the full story published in RENews.

© JournalLive

Ministers were last night facing claims of failing to investigate properly the damaging costs of a huge expansion of wind farms.

Fears have been raised that tourism and communities will suffer, but two Whitehall departments have made no assessment of the visual impact of several thousand more wind turbines demanded by ministers.

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have made “no estimates of the visual disamenity costs of electricity generation from renewables, fossil fuels or nuclear”.

The admission was made by BERR – responsible for energy – in a memo to a Lords economic committee, but the department insisted “visual costs” were a local issue.

It said they could only be estimated in surveys. But officials stressed there had to be a consistent framework for measuring environmental impact. The department said residents would still have a major say, but planning chiefs would have to support renewable energy generation.

Campaigners have also expressed concern that the public will lose its voice in major schemes that will be decided by a new quango, the Infrastructure Planning Commission, designed to speed up the planning process.

In a further development, bosses at the National Grid have told peers more pylons must be built to ensure the electricity network can cope with wind power and the bill could top £3.5bn. Countryside Alliance regional director Richard Dodd accused ministers of making “policy on the hoof” in an effort to meet an ambitious target of 15% of energy from renewables by 2020.

Mr Dodd said: “It is not moving as fast as they would like. They are robbing Peter to pay Paul. If it is costing £3.5bn to upgrade the National Grid, why don’t they push the nuclear button?”

Hexham MP Peter Atkinson warned more wind farms would increase pressure on the National Grid because of intermittent energy production, which was why it needed upgraded and more pylons.

The Tory MP, who backed nuclear power and microgeneration as the right way forward, said: “Tourism in Northumberland depends very much on it being unspoilt country and putting up wind farms will ultimately impact on our ability to attract tourists.”

Berwick Council leader Isabel Hunter said renewable energy needed to be investigated, but questioned whether wind power was best because of the cost and problems of lack of wind.

She said: “If they are going to have to put up extra pylons to link up these wind farms, it is going to have a detrimental effect on the tourism industry in north Northumberland, because a lot of our industry is based on tourism and a lot of jobs are based on that.”

The Campaign for Responsible Energy Development in Tynedale, which wrote to the Lords committee, said its biggest concern was the public losing its voice in the planning shake-up in an attempt to push renewables. Chairman Carol Brodie said: “I think bad Government energy policy and bad agricultural policy have put farmers in a more beneficial position to let their land to wind farms than grow the food that this country needs.”

But BERR told the Lords inquiry it was right to give additional emphasis to renewable energy to cut dependency on fossil fuels.

This film, produced by the Independence/Democracy Group in the European Parliament, precisely answers the question that many people ask - why wind power?

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