Changeable View

The view North from the dining hall in the ruins of Hailes Castle, East Lothian. We took a bike ride along Braehead Loan, the quiet little East Linton to Hailes road and stopped for an explore. Dotty and I had another lovely day, suiting ourselves with no children or animals to accommodate.

Dotty was outside-looking-in, and I tried a few of those but I like this-inside-looking out, particularly because I can mention the objection campaign against the 34 metre wind turbine that Over Hailes Farm have applied for. This is yet another example of money-grabbing via the Feed-In Tariff which I have written about before.

The farm in the view is Over Hailes and as you can see a wind turbine there would dominate the landscape. Hailes is a very small and beautiful castle in the Tyne valley, with Pencraig to the north and Traprain to the south. It's very beautiful.

The cottage next to Hailes Castle has put up information boards and written pro-forma letters of objection which are in a little tin by their gate. If you're able to visit, your name, address and signature is all that's required. Please. Or see below for a downloadable letter from SABEL.

There's more of this concern on the Sustaining a Beautiful East Lothian (SABEL) website. There you can download objection letters templates including one for Over Hailes which should be sent to ELC.

As you can see on the East Lothian Council website, there are an enormous amount of these applications. It's a huge problem.

Obviously, we need to wean ourselves off oil but these are simply cash-grabbing abuses of ham-fisted legislation. As SABEL says "SABEL are not against all wind turbines. We simply want developments to be carefully considered so that our countryside is not ruined by huge pieces of perpetually-moving industrial machinery. These are massive structures - a 70 metre turbine is three times taller than the biggest trees and buildings in East Lothian."