I'm all in favour of wind farms, if they help prevent global warming. But it seems they're so noisy that people living close to them are going through hell.The constant swishing and beating of the turbines is not only disturbing and distracting but prevents people sleeping. They're said to be as loud as helicopters, planes or express trains - and all day every day.
Jane Davis and her husband Julian have had to move out of their Lincolnshire home because of the racket. "On a bad night it's like three or four helicopters circling round" said Jane. She was getting only three hours sleep a night.
Ron Williams in Cumbria has to take sleeping pills and describes the turbine noise as "like a Chinese torture." Lynn Hancock in Cambridgeshire says it's like "a seven-ton lorry left running on the drive all night."
The government seems blithely unconcerned about the turbines' effect on people's health and well-being. They just want to get as many running as possible to increase their green credentials.
According to one report, they actually ignored a recommendation that the maximum decibel limit should be 33 and allowed a higher limit of 43.
How many MPs live near wind turbines and have first-hand experience of what they're like? I suspect none of them, which is why they're so indifferent. Perhaps some of them should visit the affected homes and see why the residents are so angry.
People living near airports already have to put up with worsening noise disturbance as the airports expand to allow more and more flights. Belfast City Airport is a case in point.
If people living close to wind turbines are now expected to put up with the same sort of daily background din, this is complacent officialdom at its worst. Either the noise-battered residents should be helped to relocate or the turbines themselves should be quietened down. Otherwise the whole idea of wind farms will take another hammering.
Pic: Jane and Julian Davis
