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Mr. Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con): It is unusual for a constituency Member to be able to participate in such a timely debate. It is both relevant and topical to my constituency because at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning I shall be appearing before the development control committee of the North Dorset district council, which will be considering an application to build nine wind turbines in the Winterborne valley in Dorset. Such is the opinion in my constituency against those developments that the local authority has had to house the meeting, which is considering one application only, in the largest hall in the area.

I declare a small but non-pecuniary interest: I shall appear at that meeting as the honorary chairman of the 1,000-member strong Dorset Against Rural Turbines. That organisation came into being because in the past 18 months no fewer than four schemes have been proposed in and around my constituency. In total, the schemes would have amounted to some 49 turbines in Blackmoor vale and the Winterborne valley—Hardy country.

Two of those applications were within feet of my constituency and were actually in the constituency of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath). As I mentioned earlier, he and I combined to get his local authority, South Somerset district council, which still encourages applications for wind farms on its website, to reject one of those applications. That council is Liberal Democrat controlled, but I do not want to make a party political point. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome saw that his own constituents were so opposed to that application that he joined me.

Another application, which is still current, is to build 12 turbines on the airfield at Henstridge. Although Henstridge is technically in the constituency of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, it is a finger that sticks out into my constituency, and most people assume that it is in my constituency.

Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): My hon. Friend has highlighted two points that I wonder whether he will amplify. First, applicants tend to make applications on the edge of constituencies or local authority boundaries, which makes things very difficult for all concerned. Secondly, the cumulative impact of applications is rarely measured, and the Government must take it seriously. I am fighting applications on the edge of my constituency affecting Gedney Hill, Throckenholt and Sutton St. Edmund in the same way as my hon. Friend.

Mr. Walter: I am glad that my hon. Friend has made that point, because the applications that I have described are not only on local authority and constituency boundaries, but a county boundary, so two county authorities' alternative policies also come into play.

The other two applications that are current in my constituency are in the Winterborne valley. At one stage, the applications were for a total of 35 turbines, which would have been sandwiched between two areas of outstanding natural beauty and among, but not on, National Trust land and some of the most beautiful towns and villages in Dorset. Under public pressure,
 
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those 35 turbines were reduced to 32 and then, I am pleased to say, 23 of them dropped out of the equation because of the power of public opinion—the Drax estate saw that all its neighbours were up in arms about its having those turbines on its land. I congratulate Richard Drax and his family on that decision because, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo), those turbines might have been seen as a "valuable new crop" on the Drax estate.

That leaves tomorrow's application from Your Energy, which was mentioned earlier. It seems to be a company of little substance and one can find out very little about it. Its application is for nine turbines in the Winterborne valley, although I must say that the officers of my local authority have recommended refusal and no doubt we will hear the weight of local opinion tomorrow. The turbines are of an unprecedented size and number in a beautiful lowland landscape. Installing nine massive turbines, which would be 105 m high, in attractive, soft, rolling, rural down land would be industrialisation on a huge scale.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England has stated that the visual impact on the two adjacent areas of outstanding natural beauty—

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the difficulties with wind turbine technology is that for six months of the year only 11 per cent. of the designed and built capacity is used because of a lack of wind? That means that for half the year the nine turbines that the hon. Gentleman is talking about would produce only the equivalent of the maximum output of one. That is an issue, is it not?

Mr. Walter: It certainly is, and I shall come to it in a moment in relation to the efficiency of these turbines.

The area where it is proposed to place the turbines would be adjacent to two conservation areas in the villages of Winterborne Zelston and Mapperton. Some much valued heritage sites are very close by—the Badbury and Spetisbury rings, and Hambledon and Hod hills, which will be remembered by those who know their civil war history—and many listed buildings in the vicinity would be ruined for ever. Winterborne Tomson church, which would be towered over by the wind farm, has been described thus in a book compiled by John Betjeman's daughter, Candida Lycett Green, entitled "Over the Hills and Far Away":

"there were so many magical views and memorable jewels of houses but none could ever compare with that exquisite church at Winterborne Tomson. I shall always remember the cool, pristine 'prayerfulness' of the unearthly place . . . it was total perfection and worth driving hours just to be there".

Those words were written by another large local landowner, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Approval for the proposal would destroy that location and set a precedent for expansion and duplication not only in Dorset but across southern England in similar lowland sites.

We have heard some of the compelling arguments on environmental issues. There is increasing evidence from Europe, as well as from this country, to prove the
 
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harmful effects of long-term exposure to audible and low-frequency noise from wind turbines. However, little or no research has been undertaken on turbines of this size; and the Government seem to have excluded wind turbines from the current research into low-frequency noise that is taking place at Salford university.

Then there is the loss of amenity—I have talked about our beautiful landscape—and the impact on tourism and the local economy. At the planning application meeting on the turbine proposed for Cucklington in south Somerset, on the boundary of my constituency, it was estimated that the negative effect on the local tourism industry would be more than £3 million a year.

As the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) pointed out, wind power is intermittent.

Mr. Chaytor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Walter: No; I have done so a couple of times, and I have some important points to make.

Wind power is also inefficient. As we all know, the wind will not be blowing on the cold, frosty morning when everybody wants to put the cooker and the kettle on to make breakfast, turn the heating up as far as possible, and have hot water for a bath or shower. That makes wind power a very expensive alternative when it is located at such inefficient onshore locations. I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) on her successful exposition of the alternative—offshore wind energy. The indirect subsidy results in wind energy producers having to be paid about three times the commercial price of the energy that they are producing. Wind power is an unreliable and inefficient way in which to proceed.

In summary, wind turbines will not stop global warming. They are more expensive than all other mainstream sources of energy and do not produce a significant amount of power. They disturb nearby residents and cause both physical and psychological illness. They harm wildlife, destroy large tracts of much cherished landscape and require massive funding from the taxpayer. A balance must be achieved in contentious planning applications such as that in which I will be involved tomorrow. The case for wind power has not been proven. The potential gains from it are minimal, but the losses due to it, and the effect on our environment especially, are absolutely enormous.

9.40 pm

Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): We have had a fine, interesting and well-informed debate. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have made good speeches in what should be an academic discussion about two matters of huge importance to all of us: first, what we can do to preserve the global environment; and secondly, what we can do to preserve the local and rural environment, which is almost as important to many of us, especially Conservative Members. The significance of one argument should not be overwhelmingly greater than that of the other, and we should try to strike a balance between the two.

It is notable that today's debate has been called by Her Majesty's Opposition because the Conservative party has taken the lead for at least 30 years on environmental matters—Baroness Thatcher was the
 
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first person to raise global warming, in a memorable speech some 30 years ago. Let no one mistake the fact that Conservative Members are wholly committed to combating global warming using a basket of renewable energy sources as part of an armoury of weapons.

I pay tribute to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Richard Ottaway), who has made a huge contribution to our discussions on such matters over recent months. I have greatly enjoyed working with him and I know that he will continue to do that. My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) plays a distinguished role as Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, and he spoke with great passion and knowledge.

Conservative Members accept the renewables obligation, and we are as keen as anyone to find a way of meeting it. However, that should not preclude a sensible and grown-up debate about how best to achieve that. Should the policy be largely dependent on onshore wind farms, which in essence seems to be the Government's current proposal? The Minister for Energy and E-Commerce made it clear that half of the balance required to increase the 2.7 per cent. of energy currently produced by renewables to the target of 10 per cent. would be achieved by using onshore farms, with the other half achieved using offshore ones. I suspect that onshore farms will produce more energy than offshore farms. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey nicely put it, we need a step change in our approach to such matters, and we must use not simply one such source but a basket of several.

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