OUTREAYGEOUS

In a monstrously disingenuous email, published in the Evesham Journal, the leader of the discredited protest group VVASP tried to justify the ludicrous claims made by his manic nimbies about wind farm noise. He cited the fact that Lord Reay of Hutton has tabled a Private Members Bill in the House of Lords, calling for a 2km exclusion zone around windfarm developments, as some kind of demented 'proof' that windfarms are noisy.

Well, Lord Reay of Hutton isn't exactly up-to-date with environmental issues and the needs of the planet. He rebelled against his own party in 2008 to vote 'Not Content' to an amendment to the Planning Bill which stated that the 'Policy must mitigate and adapt to climate change'. He was, in fact, the only Tory peer to do so.

What does this tell us? That Lord Reay of Hutton doesn't know the first thing about the need for renewables - or doesn't care (he's pretty ancient, you know). Which makes him just the sort of friend the nasty nimbies are looking for - an aged buffer with absolutely no grasp of reality.

Lord Reay also lent his (inconsiderable) weight to a campaign trying to stop the Armistead windfarm development in the Lake District. In July of this year, the High Court rejected the loopy appeal, granting the developers the go-ahead for the windfarm. The whole process cost the misguided anti campaigners a huge amount of money, and all for nothing. The windfarm will happen. Lord Reay's intervention was irrelevant.

So, should we worry about Lord Reay's Private Members Bill? No. It's just a stick-in-the-mud, antediluvian Tory, totally out of touch with the modern world and even his own party, playing a very, very silly game on behalf of a bunch of deluded nutters.

Only a deranged nimby would imagine that Lord Reay's Bill counts for anything.