ITV. 8pm. Planning Wars. Programme about Planning and countryside/coping

harryhound

There is a lively interest in planning permission here on the MSE forum; so lets know the real facts.

Bennington, a village and a parish in the county of Hertford. The village stands near the river Beane, and near a branch Roman way, 5 miles ESE of Stevenage, and 6 from Stevenage station on the G.N.R. It has a post and money order office under Stevenage; telegraph office, Walkern. It was formerly a market-town, and has still a pleasure fair on 10 July. The parish comprises 3060 acres; population of the civil parish, 627; of the ecclesiastical, 617. The manor belonged to the Benstedes, the Caesars, and the Earl of Essex, and belongs now to the Proctors. An ancient palace of the kings of Mercia stood here, and cither that or a castle which succeeded it is now indicated by an entrenched eminence. Bennington Park, to the east, is a fine seat. The living is a rectory in the diocese of St. Albans; net value, £362 with residence. Patron, trustees. The church contains some ancient monuments, and is good. There is a Primitive Methodist chapel, and there are a few small charities.

I seem to remember going to this pocket village to look at the snow drops in the garden of the "seat". Very attractive in an unpublicised conservation way. (green shoots anyone?)

However on the day that the Russians turn off the gas to our fellow citizens, I would need to be persuaded that 21st "green" technology is more than a backdrop to the village scene.

If the villagers agreed to go back to using oil lamps and are getting about on their bikes, I would be more sympathetic.

nickmason

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

the name was something like Bedington.

my neighbours will have to wait for their 15 minutes of fame. Hope it's not through the repo man....

Lotus-eater

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

We saw some of it. villagers somewhere getting terribly excited about 3 wind turbines on farmland.

I think they are rather beautiful.

I agree, I wouldn't like noise from them tbh, but looking at them wouldn't worry me at all.

harryhound

In fairness to the villagers, I have been the victim of variable English spelling, here are the snowdrops:
http://www.beningtonlordship.co.uk/

and here is the protest

http://www.stopbeningtonwindfarm.co.uk/

(Check out the "where will they be" link on the protest web site)

The rotors are:
Roughly 1,000 meters from Benington itself.
Poking up into the afternoon sunshine
Visible from the trunk road (local bypass),
Nobody living within 100 meters.


I think I would pass it
Now all we need is messrs Andrew Bott & John Cherry to tell us what these three bring in?
How do they compare with a multi user cell phone mast for example?
Perhaps the villagers would like to put their money where their mouths are and buy them off?

I would be quite proud to have them 400 meters away on the top of the hill overlooking Hound Hovel (especially if I was bought off with free green electricity ) but we do tend to get everyone else's garbage (literally) dumped on us in Essex:rolleyes:.

Strapped

My brother in law lives in SW London, and at the end of his road is a "small scale" turbine (free-standing, bigger than the tiny ones you put on houses but smaller than the full scale rural wind farm ones). I was amazed by how quiet it is (having heard the clanging from some of the latter). Maybe a few more like this would be the answer?

abaxas

Easy sorted.

If you object to the farm, you pay extra on your electicity bill.

Mary_Hartnell

Google knows:

<ol><li class="g"><h3 class="r">R H Bott & Sons, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG2 - Contact Details ...<a href="javascript:void(0)" id="LXPLSS_906745312U1"><li class="g"><h3 class="r">Benington Windfarm<a href="javascript:void(0)" id="LXPLSS_217734138U1">

Looks like we are all shareholders already

http://farmsubsidy.org/recx/unitedkingdom/61/R%20H%20BOTT%20&%20SON

Perhaps they are not related.

edgex

I watched the programme, probably would have been done better on ch4

That builder in Yorkshire was/is a complete prat, & then winding up the company so the council have to foot the bill!
He was in the wrong to start with, surprised the locals didnt just knock it down themselves


Heathrow extra runway
Well, its now known that pretty much all the data used in the planning of the 3rd runway is so inaccurate & biased as to be useless.

WTF?_2

Strapped wrote: »

My brother in law lives in SW London, and at the end of his road is a "small scale" turbine (free-standing, bigger than the tiny ones you put on houses but smaller than the full scale rural wind farm ones). I was amazed by how quiet it is (having heard the clanging from some of the latter). Maybe a few more like this would be the answer?

The problem is that with the collapse in energy prices, pretty soon the notion of spending money on sustainable energy is going to be unpopular.

We should be using this period of cheap fossil fuel energy as an opportunity to gear up for the times to come. I suspect that it will be the exact opposite that happens leaving us horribly exposed a few years down the line.


I wonder will Obama pull a rabbit out of the hat and go for an ambitious programme of weaning the USA off of it's overconsumption of energy and resultant reliance on foreign reserves? Promoting lots of sustainable generation and mandating a move to electric cars for example would be a great way to pump money into the US auto industry.

PasturesNew

In a perfect world, I'd like a small turbine to drive my electricity - and some solar thingies to do some heating - and one of those grey water systems that takes the bath water and re-routes it to cisterns.

In reality I won't be having a house built and I'll have to put up with whatever bad/mad choices the previous builder/owners chose.