Carmarthenshire residents meeting hears calls for a united front against energy parks and pylons
Carmarthenshire Residents Action Group’s (CRAiG Sir Gâr) meeting in Pumsaint on Saturday 13th September heard calls for a united front against energy parks and pylons planned for the Carmarthenshire countryside.
Over 100 residents attended the crowded meeting called by Havard Hughes to discuss the proliferation of energy parks in north Carmarthenshire which will surround communities. Residents fear that their historic landscapes will be decimated by a growing series of major wind, solar and pylon projects. Pylons and access roads could soon carve their way through Pumsaint, including over scheduled ancient monuments, such as the Roman fort. The area around the unique Dolaucothi Roman Gold mine will be changed irrevocably. Consultation on the scheme – the Bryn Cadwgan Energy Park – closes on the 1st October.
The meeting also discussed the scale of the development facing Carmarthenshire. This includes 60-90 new giant turbines up to 250 metres tall, the loss of dark skies due to aviation warning lights and quarrying activities planned to generate thousands of tonnes of aggregate for turbine foundations. Residents were also troubled by the dangers of locating battery storage in Carmarthenshire’s woodlands. Raising the risk of environmental degradation and fire, near to the Llyn Brianne reservoir as well as other sensitive sites.
Local MP Ann Davies gave her apologies for not attending the meeting.
Havard Hughes, Spokesman for CRAiG Sir Gâr commented:
“Residents are shocked by the sheer scale of the energy park developments. Yet these proposals at Bryn Cadwgan, Brechfa (Glyn Cothi) and Bute Energy’s Nant Ceiment are an utterly predictable industrialisation. Welsh Government has designated a third of Carmarthenshire as an industrial wind zone in Future Wales 2040 with a further solar zone in the south of our county.
Many communities face being surrounded by energy infrastructure with a decade of disruption as roads are carved through countryside, bridges built for massive machines and quarries blasted out of hillsides. People are looking for support from their political representatives; but are so far feeling ignored by local politicians and their own Government in Cardiff.”
Mari Mitchell commented:
“We should be leaving the planet for future generations in a better state than we found it. Quite rightly our Welsh Government has recognised the importance of future generations with the Future Generations Act. This has also been demonstrated by the work on a National Forest. However, these proposals are a direct contradiction to the Future Generations Act. Sympathetic woodland management should be the way forward for Brechfa, preserving ancient woodland and improving biodiversity not industrialisation.”
As a Brechfa resident of 52 years, the more I learn about the proposals to harness wind power for the benefit of foreign companies the more I despair. Gwynfor Evans would be horrified at what this Welsh Government is doing to its own country. This isn’t green energy its greed energy. You would have thought that a government that supports tourism, health and wellbeing would realise this is not the route to take.