Scars of wind farm fight will take time to heal

SIR,-There is nothing marginal about the Secretary of State’s decision to refuse the Moorsyde wind farm appeal. His decision and the planning inspector’s report that advised him are quite emphatic.
They cite not one, but four clear grounds for rejecting the appeal. Both the inspector and the minister clearly and unequivocally conclude that the proposal would contravene local and national planning guidance.
This comes from a minister in a government pursuing panic and gesture politics, applying all the weight that it can to ensure onshore wind proposals are consented, whatever the opposition and despite the ever mounting evidence that this is a futile way of addressing both climate change and our dependence on fossil fuels.
To those of us who have spent the last five-and-a-half years of our lives fighting this appalling proposal this comes as no surprise at all.
The grounds for rejecting the appeal mirror precisely the points that Moorsyde Action Group raised repeatedly at local, county and regional level to all who were involved in, or capable of influencing the decision making process.
For reasons that are sometimes hard to explain, those involved, with the honourable exception of our former local councillors, failed to recognise, or chose to ignore the glaringly obvious.
We always knew that if the application was professionally and objectively examined and the gross errors, distortions and deceptions of the developer were exposed, there could only be one possible outcome.
This raises some very big questions. Why have local people in the communities surrounding the farcically named Moorsyde site had to endure five-and-a-half years of stress and the blighting of their local area by this proposal?
Why, in the teeth of a bitter recession, were they forced to find more than £100,000 to ensure the case was properly put at the public inquiry?
Possibly, most importantly of all, why did the so-called professionals involved in the original determination recommend this deeply flawed scheme for approval, not once, but twice, to the former Berwick Borough councillors?
This latter point is critical because it was so central to the applicant’s case at the inquiry.
Without doubt, the behaviour of the Moorsyde developers had a significant part to play. Behind a very thin ‘green’ veil, elements of the wind industry, driven by the prospect of vast and heavily subsidised profits, play a very dirty game indeed.
Deception, manipulation and bullying are part and parcel of their everyday approach. In the case of Moorsyde, these tactics were quickly and comprehensively exposed once the matter came to the public inquiry.
They were, however, also repeatedly raised and evidenced to local officials throughout the preceding years, but they were either not investigated or ignored.
Throughout the determination period, Berwick Borough Council’s planning department was in crisis and was completely overwhelmed by the wind farm applications.
This should have been recognised and addressed by regional government, but it chose not to do so.
However, despite these challenging circumstances, there can be no excuse for the gross lack of professionalism that was displayed both by public servants and the various inadequately briefed, unsupervised, and in one case terrifyingly incompetent, consultants who were hired to fill the gaps.
Thankfully, Moorsyde is now history. The injustice of the system however means that there is no hope of recovering any of the vast costs that local people have had to bear and the scars of the past five-and-a-half years will take some time to heal.
Other proposals lie just over the horizon. In particular, the E.on sponsored West Ancroft scheme is proposed on a site immediately adjacent to Moorsyde.
The findings in the inspector’s report relating to Moorsyde apply in equal measure to the West Ancroft scheme.
They provide a clear route map for the officials of Northumberland County Council to deal with this application swiftly and robustly. It is essential that they do so.
This community should never again have to face the huge emotional and financial burden that was inflicted on it by the Moorsyde experience.

MIKE MAUD
Chairman
Moorsyde Action Group

Don't be hoodwinked by hospital proposal

SIR,-The recent consultation process on the plans of the Northumbria Healthcare Trust to build a new hospital for medical and surgical emergencies in the Cramlington area has now concluded, and construction is to go ahead as originally planned.
Nothing in the plan has changed as a result of the consultation, other than some alterations to the provision for the paediatric and orthopaedic cases in response to objections from the Newcastle hospitals.
The argument for the creation of an emergency hospital is based upon the recognised benefit to emergency cases of being brought under the care of medical emergency specialists within the first hour of the emergency arising; the ‘golden hour’.
The site for the hospital at Cramlington has been chosen after soliciting the views of the consultants on the point nearest to the centre of urban population in the county, judged to be where most of the emergency cases are likely to originate.
Most urban patients in the south of the county already live and work well within an hour’s access time of a major hospital, all such hospitals being sited in urban conurbations.
Most rural inhabitants of the county live and work beyond an hour’s journey by road of a major hospital (neither Berwick or Alnwick Hospitals have comprehensive specialist cover for emergency cases).
The main road system in Northumberland is largely single carriageway. Delays due to road repair, accident closures or bad weather conditions are fairly frequent.
The A1 is a source of accidents itself. If the new hospital is to be sited at Cramlington there will be no major accident unit in proximity to the A1 between Edinburgh and Cramlington, roughly 90 miles.
Including the time taken for an ambulance to reach an emergency case in the first place, no rural emergency case will reach the new hospital within the mandatory ‘golden hour’.
The ‘golden hour’ criterion applies to treatment by consultant emergency specialists, not by paramedical staff. It does not include treatment carried out in transit by ambulance or helicopter.
Many emergency cases have a compromised circulation caused by blood loss, cardiac failure or even septicaemia. Such cases are made much worse by tipping on a stretcher, or by sudden braking in a vehicle.
They should not be transported long distances before the circulation has been properly stabilised.
The rural population of Northumberland is already disadvantaged by having to make long journeys for specialist hospital care, as all of us who live here are fully aware.
In all of the 62 years of the NHS’s existence, nothing (other than the building of the Wansbeck Hospital, at Ashington) has been done to alleviate this problem. The excuse has been lack of funds to build new facilities.
The trust plans to spend £200m on the scheme, and therefore can hardly plead lack of funds. Alternatives, which might bring more benefits to the rural population, do not seem to have been considered in any depth.
The inhabitants of Berwick should not be hoodwinked by a promise to improve facilities in Berwick Hospital without careful consideration of what such improvements may amount to. It is highly unlikely that specialist emergency facilities will be included.

DAVID MORRISON
Formerly Director of Intensive Care
Coronary Care and Dialysis Units
North Manchester General Hospital
Belford

Store would be a blot on the landscape

SIR,-A planning application has been lodged with Northumberland County Council to build a large supermarket at South Road, Wooler, on the site of Redpath’s Yard.
It would be 17,500 sq ft of ugliness which would be out of all proportion to the size of Wooler’s population and a blot on the landscape. It would undoubtedly cause great damage and probable closures to present shops in Wooler.
In recent years, the High Street has seen a great revival due to the hard work of independent retailers with the help of the Glendale Gateway Trust.
The friendly courtesy of our shops is a great attraction to tourists in contrast to the usual chain-store dominated high streets of many modern towns.
We should value the character of our town and support and preserve it.
Wooler’s example is a shining light for small communities in Northumberland.

TIMOTHY and DIANA SHARP
Wooler

Self praise is no praise at all

SIR,-There is a phrase, ‘self praise is no recommendation’. This applies to organisations just as much as individuals.
The report in your paper, (December 24, 2009) where the head teacher declared that Berwick High School was one of the best schools in England, was a classic example of this type of ‘spin’.
Self praise is certainly not a valid form of recommendation so let's hear it from some other admiring groups.
Do the pupils themselves think they attend one of the best schools in England? Do the school’s junior teachers even think this? What about the LEA or the governing bodies of other state schools in the area?
Are they singing the praises of Berwick High School? No, they are not and that’s because Berwick High School is run by bureaucrats who think that by surrounding themselves with gingerbread awards and certificates, the school can replace quality with quantity.
Not withstanding the misleading average GCSE point scores, largely achieved by including non-academic subjects, the pupils at Berwick High School are massively under-achieving.
Instead of having a bunch of students clamouring to get into the sixth-form to progress their GCSEs through to A level standard, the vast majority simply drift away after their exams.
Only a disgracefully low proportion of students stay on to take A levels.
This should be recognised as a great failure of the school’s governing body.
The highest achievement of any school is its ability to engender a high degree of academic aspiration into the hearts and minds of its students. In this respect, Berwick Community High School has conspicuously failed.

JUSTIN GUDGEON
Norham West Mains Farm