Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[Stirrer]

All the numbers indicate the majority of people do not want the Viking Energy wind farm to go ahead.

 

The SIC organised meetings averaged 75% opposition.

 

The original Viking Energy planning application resulted in 2026 objections and just 518 in support.

 

The Viking Energy planning addendum may be released tomorrow. As it stands people would have just 28 days to submit objections. Technically the original objections still count as raw numbers, but if folk objected before, it would be a good idea to also submit a new objection just to make sure.

 

In the same way as you were organising multiple objections by the same people at different SIC meetings !

 

And i know this is true, as i was sitting very close to you as you were whispering to other members of the Militant Tendancy.

 

And by the way, Planning Applications invite objections from affected persons or organisations but do not seek for letters of support in the same way. It it therefore amazing that so many people took the time to write in supporting the proposal.

[KTL]

Ah stirrer, well named.

 

You make an allegation of "multiple objections by the same people at different SIC meetings". Do you mean folk spoke at more than one meeting? Or are you alleging that folk took part in the vote at more than one meeting?

 

For the record Sustainable Shetland members, and others, went out of their way at each meeting to tell people not to vote if they had voted at any other meeting.

 

You can read the transcripts if you like. http://www.sustainableshetland.org/planning/index.htm

 

You will also find a number of prominent wind farm supporters rubbishing marine power...

 

And whilst we are on the subject of objecting and supporting, you will also recall that Viking Energy employed a PR company (at our expense) to organise online and print advertising to get people to write letters of support.

 

The Viking Energy website used sophisticated software to automatically generate letters of support which were made to look like real individual letters, i.e. rough grammar, irrelevant points colloquial language etc. It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

 

What is amazing is that with so much money, resources and information at their fingertips, Viking Energy could only muster 518 letters of support. A fraction of the 2026 objections I think you will agree.

[Stirrer]

 

You make an allegation of "multiple objections by the same people at different SIC meetings". Do you mean folk spoke at more than one meeting? Or are you alleging that folk took part in the vote at more than one meeting?

 

For the record Sustainable Shetland members, and others, went out of their way at each meeting to tell people not to vote if they had voted at any other meeting.

 

Yes, I am saying that I witnessed you, 'advising' Unsustainable Shetland members or supporters to vote at more than one meeting, to keep the anti windfarm vote high. This was after the officials at the front table asked if people would refrain from voting if they had voted at a previous meeting.

[ArabiaTerra]

^^ The rebuttal is as flawed as the original allegations. They're both right, and they're both wrong, as they both fail to mention the same relevant fact.

 

Yes, many hilltops where the turbines will be sited and the roads end up, as Laughton rightfully says, are already areas of degraded moor and will be little affected by Viking. However, Viking have to get up there from where the roads currently are, and to do so they are cutting through moor that is both steep, and in the majority of places undegraded. Which is where Allan's points come in to play.

 

For a lot of the sites and for where a lot of the roads end up, very little stands to be lost over the present, it is the necessary damage that will have to be done to get up and down to the tops of the hills that is the issue. Much of it steep, some of it very steep, and most of it undegraded moor. There will be slippages there when parts of the natural anchoring system is degraded, and/or its loading increased, gravity will ensure that there are.

The fact remains though, GR, we have been driving roads, both big and small, through Shetland's peat land for the last hundred years without regard to how they would affect the drainage of the surrounding moor and there has been no significant problem up to now.

 

Just look at the road up the Dales-Lees or up and down the hill again at the Brig O'Fitch. Those roads cut horizontally through the natural direction of the drainage for miles and have done for years with no effect. I just don't believe that building roads through peat does that much damage, especially considering the care which VE will be taking to minimise the effects.

 

Only with the onset of the torrential downpours predicted by climate scientists have we started to see a problem. I can only remember one significant landslide before 2000, and that was man-made, at the back of Firth camp down into the valley at Toft. It was caused because the builder bulldozed all the peat from the camp site up onto the top of the hill and left it there. They were just damned lucky it went down that side of the hill and not the other, taking the camp with it.

 

Anyway, the modified planning proposal is due out tomorrow. Lets wait and see what it contains.

[unlinkedstudent]

 

You make an allegation of "multiple objections by the same people at different SIC meetings". Do you mean folk spoke at more than one meeting? Or are you alleging that folk took part in the vote at more than one meeting?

 

For the record Sustainable Shetland members, and others, went out of their way at each meeting to tell people not to vote if they had voted at any other meeting.

 

Yes, I am saying that I witnessed you, 'advising' Unsustainable Shetland members or supporters to vote at more than one meeting, to keep the anti windfarm vote high. This was after the officials at the front table asked if people would refrain from voting if they had voted at a previous meeting.

 

ABSOLUTE TOSH! I had only recently moved to Shetland and attended the meeting at the Ness. I am not in favour of the windfarm but NOBODY from Sustainable Shetland told me at that meeting how to vote. For the record, I didn't see anyone from Sustainable Shetland tell others how to vote at that meeting either!

[Stirrer]

 

You make an allegation of "multiple objections by the same people at different SIC meetings". Do you mean folk spoke at more than one meeting? Or are you alleging that folk took part in the vote at more than one meeting?

 

For the record Sustainable Shetland members, and others, went out of their way at each meeting to tell people not to vote if they had voted at any other meeting.

 

Yes, I am saying that I witnessed you, 'advising' Unsustainable Shetland members or supporters to vote at more than one meeting, to keep the anti windfarm vote high. This was after the officials at the front table asked if people would refrain from voting if they had voted at a previous meeting.

 

ABSOLUTE TOSH! I had only recently moved to Shetland and attended the meeting at the Ness. I am not in favour of the windfarm but NOBODY from Sustainable Shetland told me at that meeting how to vote. For the record, I didn't see anyone from Sustainable Shetland tell others how to vote at that meeting either!

 

I was at the Town Hall meting, and clearly heard KTL advising other Unsustainble Shetland members around him to vote again.

[unlinkedstudent]

^^ Stirrer, you actually said you were at more than one meeting.

 

I'm pretty sure that way further back in this thread that a Moderator picked up on the same point you made re Sustainable Shetland encouraging peeps to vote at more than one meeting and that said Moderator was at the Lerwick meeting and they witnessed no such thing!

[Stirrer]

^^ Stirrer, you actually said you were at more than one meeting.

 

I'm pretty sure that way further back in this thread that a Moderator picked up on the same point you made re Sustainable Shetland encouraging peeps to vote at more than one meeting and that said Moderator was at the Lerwick meeting and they witnessed no such thing!

 

I did not say that I was at more than one meeting. I was only at the Town Hall meeting, and for the record only voted once.

 

At the meeting, i was sitting very near to the vice Chairman of Unsustainable Shetland. When the time came for the vote, other members of the group turned to KTL after the meeting Chairman clearly asked for nobody to vote again if they voted at previous meetings. I heard him whisper to these members to vote again.

 

There was also winks across the room, which was obviously a sign for others to do the same.

[unlinkedstudent]

^Apologies Stirrer - it was just the way I'd read your previous post.

[Ghostrider]

^^ The rebuttal is as flawed as the original allegations. They're both right, and they're both wrong, as they both fail to mention the same relevant fact.

 

Yes, many hilltops where the turbines will be sited and the roads end up, as Laughton rightfully says, are already areas of degraded moor and will be little affected by Viking. However, Viking have to get up there from where the roads currently are, and to do so they are cutting through moor that is both steep, and in the majority of places undegraded. Which is where Allan's points come in to play.

 

For a lot of the sites and for where a lot of the roads end up, very little stands to be lost over the present, it is the necessary damage that will have to be done to get up and down to the tops of the hills that is the issue. Much of it steep, some of it very steep, and most of it undegraded moor. There will be slippages there when parts of the natural anchoring system is degraded, and/or its loading increased, gravity will ensure that there are.

The fact remains though, GR, we have been driving roads, both big and small, through Shetland's peat land for the last hundred years without regard to how they would affect the drainage of the surrounding moor and there has been no significant problem up to now.

 

Just look at the road up the Dales-Lees or up and down the hill again at the Brig O'Fitch. Those roads cut horizontally through the natural direction of the drainage for miles and have done for years with no effect. I just don't believe that building roads through peat does that much damage, especially considering the care which VE will be taking to minimise the effects.

 

Only with the onset of the torrential downpours predicted by climate scientists have we started to see a problem. I can only remember one significant landslide before 2000, and that was man-made, at the back of Firth camp down into the valley at Toft. It was caused because the builder bulldozed all the peat from the camp site up onto the top of the hill and left it there. They were just damned lucky it went down that side of the hill and not the other, taking the camp with it.

 

Anyway, the modified planning proposal is due out tomorrow. Lets wait and see what it contains.

 

 

I don't have time to fully reply right now, but here's one example to be going on with.

 

Dale/Brig o' Fitch August 1950. http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/image.php?i=120099&r=2&t=4&x=1

[KTL]

At the meeting, i was sitting very near to the vice Chairman of Unsustainable Shetland. When the time came for the vote, other members of the group turned to KTL after the meeting Chairman clearly asked for nobody to vote again if they voted at previous meetings. I heard him whisper to these members to vote again.

 

There was also winks across the room, which was obviously a sign for others to do the same.

 

This is a lie. He is accusing me of manipulating votes, I did no such thing. This is slander and will not be tolerated. I will now give Stirrer the opportunity to withdraw this allegation.

[Njugle]

I heard him whisper to these members to vote again.

 

There was also winks across the room, which was obviously a sign for others to do the same.

 

To be fair, in addressing this relatively defamatory allegation Stirrer, are you asserting that you heard the actual words "Vote again now, as you have done before" or similar, unambiguously identifying a conspiracy to slew the vote tally?

 

The "winks across the room....for others to do the same" statement can surely only be considered as supposition. If you weren't at another meeting, how can you claim to know that these individuals voted, and then voted again?

[Stirrer]

I heard him whisper to these members to vote again.

 

There was also winks across the room, which was obviously a sign for others to do the same.

 

To be fair, in addressing this relatively defamatory allegation Stirrer, are you asserting that you heard the actual words "Vote again now, as you have done before" or similar, unambiguously identifying a conspiracy to slew the vote tally?

 

The "winks across the room....for others to do the same" statement can surely only be considered as supposition. If you weren't at another meeting, how can you claim to know that these individuals voted, and then voted again?

 

I will admit to not being able to state the actual words, but stand by the allegation that Unsustainable Shetland members voted at more than one meeting to slew the vote count, a point which was known by members of their politburo.

 

KTL admits as much in a post above. If previous objections are still valid, why is he encouraging members to object again, other than to manipulate the count.

 

Does he expect the Planning Dept to sift through all these objections and remove multiple objections from the same person, as that will be quite a task.

 

All the numbers indicate the majority of people do not want the Viking Energy wind farm to go ahead.

 

The SIC organised meetings averaged 75% opposition.

 

The original Viking Energy planning application resulted in 2026 objections and just 518 in support.

 

The Viking Energy planning addendum may be released tomorrow. As it stands people would have just 28 days to submit objections. Technically the original objections still count as raw numbers, but if folk objected before, it would be a good idea to also submit a new objection just to make sure.

[KTL]

For the hard of thinking I will restate the facts:

Sustainable Shetland went out of their way to tell members in advance, and people present at meetings to only vote once.

The claim by Stirrer that we encouraged people to vote more than once at community planning meetings is inaccurate, misleading and I can only presume Stirrer has malicious intent.

 

From what I saw at 2 planning meetings, the vast majority of people, regardless of whether they were for or against the planning application, behaved with dignity and respect and participated fairly.

 

His claim that I personally encouraged people to vote more than once is actionable.

 

To his other points regarding encouraging planning responses. If someone’s objection was based solely on "150 turbines are too many" they will need to re-submit their application in light of the addendum. If someone didn't get around to making an objection first time around, this addendum allows them to make an objection this time.

[shetlandpeat]

Amazing.... Henry and shetland peat you are living in a complete fantasy land.

Benefit the majority instead of the few?????

 

So, wind energy is not viable, at all.

 

I thought it was just that 75% of Shetland folk did not want Viking, well that is the implication.

 

There are moves to make marine wind turbines cheaper, then all the money can go to the Gov, then we will ALL be better off.

 

So, put all the turbines in control of the Crown Estates and let the whole country benefit.

 

The jobs to maintain may fall with the oil rig supply vessels, and the jobs and training can come from the whole country.

 

Perhaps more folk should live in London and other large cities to feel the fx of smog, how it can knock 7 years or so off your life and harm the young developing. Folk do not always have free choice of where they live, but have the right of us all to live a healthy life not poisoned by others whimsical ideas of right and wrong.

 

So perhaps to deny these folk the opportunity of forward thinking sustainable energy in any for is selfishness.

 

IMO

 

There will have to be an answer, before folk are told where these are going under some sort of legislation.