It is with great pleasure that we can announce annual community benefit payments for 2017 to the parishes of Bere Regis (Dorset), Wanstrow & Witham Friary (Somerset), Dyrham & Hinton (South Glos) totalling just over £28,000. This is slightly down on 2016 and due primarily to lower than average wind speeds.
Distgen continues to deliver on the pre-planning promises to put money back into the local communities hosting our Rogershill Farm, Landmark Farm and Talbot Farm wind turbines having now donated nearly £82,000!
In each case the payments are made directly to the Parish Councils to be spent on behalf of their electorate, often financing local initiatives that might otherwise struggle for funding in the current economic climate.
In response to the most recent payment, a representative of Bere Regis Parish Council said:
Thank you so much for the contribution it is always greatly received and enables us to do so much that we would otherwise be unable to do.
At the moment, we are looking to build a new village hall as the one we have is too small and not particularly disabled and elderly friendly. A larger hall will enable us to increase the number of people we can invite to our monthly lunch club for the over 60s, hold more community events and enable the doctors’ surgery to carry out more treatments than their current facility allows – physiotherapy sessions for example.
UKIP worried “renewables running out”
Last week an article in the Independent shone a light on the ignorance of UKIP candidates about their own policy on renewable energy. Apparently UKIP candidate for Grimsby, Victoria Ayling, had caused chortles and sniggers during a local debate having asked “what happens when renewable energy runs out?”
Councillor Ayling has since become something of a celebrity on Twitter and other social media with thousands of quotes and re-tweets.
Subsequently Ayling has said what she meant to ask was “what happens when the subsidies for renewable energy run out?” which is probably not a great deal less silly given the UKIP policy to end subsidies for renewables.
Clearly the councillor has no idea what impact her own party’s policies would have.
Worse still is the focus on one particular subsidy among many thousands purely because of an ideological hatred of wind energy. Why not come clean and just say they hate wind turbines? Both UKIP and the Conservatives pick on subsidies because energy industry regulator OFGEM continues to support on-shore wind saying it is the cheapest form of renewable energy available – ie it does actually work and is cost effective.
Both UKIP and the Conservatives are pro-fracking and would most likely seek to bias the planning system in favour of the “strategic delivery” of fracked gas in the same (but inverse) way that Mr Pickles is currently refusing wind farm appeals.
Whatever the result, the outcome of the General Election will have a major impact on the ability of the UK to deliver on future (and much tougher) environmental targets.