DEVELOPER TRICKS

NPOWER HIRES SOUTHERN ACTIVISTS TO STUFF THE RESPONSE FILES

Following on from Your Energy‘s use of an ex-Greenpeace activist from Yorkshire to pack the ‘Moorsyde’ response files with pre-written letters just before a planning meeting (see below), NPower have used eco-activists from Southern England and Wales to stuff the response files with pre-written letters expressing support for the Toft Hill scheme.

NPower's Activists at work in Berwick, 27 February 2008.

Activists in Berwick were manning a stall that had some parts of the Toft Hill environmental Statement on show and they admitted to the writer that they were being paid by NPower to collect signatures, though they were unwilling to give their full names and were remarkeably camera shy for people who spend most of their lives trying to get pictures of their stunts into newspapers. In the 45 minutes we were present, we did did not hear them once mention to people they were approaching that NPower were paying for the exercise. Nor did the stall or the pre-written letter they were using bear the name of NPower or any other organisation (see below).

This is a dishonest way to operate, in our opinion. When MAG was collecting signatures for a petition, we identified ourselves to people with our full names and told them directly that we were collecting signatures for MAG's campaign. All our forms have MAG’s name and contact details on them.

Npower, when contacted by the press, issued a statement claiming that the stall was being run by an organisation called ‘Alliance4wind’. We googled the name and got the following result: “Your search - Alliance4Wind - did not match any documents.” Very strange - an invisible activist group!

NPower‘s biggest fans

A quick bit of research on the internet reveals that the tall chap is Jonathan Lincoln, founder of the Welsh ‘Sustainable Energy Alliance’, one of myriad small groups of eco-activists. He was listed as a Greenpeace organiser in Porthmadog, North Wales in 2006. The group’s website gives a list of the wind power projects that they support; these are: Gwynt-Y-Mor, Lindhurst, Langham and Rhyl Flats. These are all NPower proposals.

However, it does seem that Jonathan's group is now accepting commissions to operate on behalf of other developers, a recent press report identifies SEA as operating on behalf of Infinergy, which plans to build 10 huge turbines north of Grantham: “The firm pays the expenses of members of the Sustainable Energy Alliance when they visit the Grantham area to lobby for the proposed wind farm at Thackson's Well, near Long Bennington.” The Grantham Journal quotes an Infinergy spokeswoman as saying: “The activity is done by SEA and not by Infinergy.” An interesting distinction!

SEA’s informative style of debate on renewables issues is typified by its T-shirts:

SEA T-shirt.

Misleading the public.

NPower’s dodgy support letter.

Nearly every bullet point in this document is misleading. See the Toft Hill page for a more detailed analysis of this misleading document.

© The Journal.
'Windfarm company calls in eco-warrior'. Robert Brooks, 18 December 2006

YOUR ENERGY'S ‘SILENT MAJORITY’ SCAM.

Your Energy now uses a standard set of rather grubby PR tactics in the attempt to show support for their turbine schemes. These include a dodgy ‘Your View’ reply-paid, response card that is sent out with a so-called ‘community update’ to people in a wide area around a scheme, stating that, “This information will be used solely for consultation purposes” (see below). Any returns are used to turn well-meaning expressions of support for renewables into ‘evidence’ of support for a planning application. They also pay eco-activists to run ‘Yes to Wind’ stalls in nearby towns and even locations such as motorway service areas and the Glastonbury Festival. The spiel invariably involves presenting people with a cynically dishonest “nukes/renewables choice” and asking people to sign in favour of wind/renewables (see below).

Local Opposition

MAG was launched at an open public meeting where supporters of the 'Moorsyde' scheme were asked by the Chair to speak. The major landowner involved in the scheme did so (at length), as did one other supporter. That was the level of support at a packed open meeting.

When the ‘Moorsyde’ application was advertised for representations to be made it produced 12 letters of support to the planners: 3 from the landowners involved and 4 from outside Northumberland. These 12 letters remained the grand total of expressions of support for the ‘Moorsyde’ scheme from January 2005 to September 2006. By contrast, well over 200 detailed letters of objection were sent.

MAG organised a petition against the scheme: 756 people signed, supplying their addresses, and the petition was lodged with the Council. MAG carried out a door-to-door survey with the petition which showed that 81.2% of households within 2.5km objected (see the Petition page); Duddo Parish Council carried out a door-to-door survey of all residents in the Parish which obtained similar results. Shoresdean Parish Council held a public consultation which again showed overwhelming opposition.

Your Energy's CONsultation

Your Energy has formally apologised to a Planning Inspector in Cambridgeshire for their lack of consultation with local people (story on the YEL News page). They have behaved in exactly the same manner here: very few people contacted with an initial letter; solitary ‘exhibition’ that was not properly advertised; total failure to meet with local people since 21 October 2004.

Your Energy's distribution of 8,300 freepost ‘Your View’ cards in the summer of 2006 caused a great deal of anger locally. These had 3 dodgy ‘questions’ designed to show the support of ‘the silent majority’ for the scheme. This evoked such an underwhelming response that YEL have been reduced to doing a rather silly analysis of the tiny number of returns and quietly submitting it to the Planning Department (without the evidence of the original cards, so that names, addresses and responses can be examined, this should not be admissable as a representation to the planning authority). As an example of how dishonest this exercise was, they took the many cards that refused to tick the box supporting ‘Moorsyde’ while supporting renewables and wind power in general as signifying support for their scheme. In the Isle of Wight they press-released the results of a similar exercise (their Welland scheme was rejected soon afterwards).

The Kelly Gang

On November 15 2006, Matt Kelly of Your Energy asked the planners whether he could see the response file. The company subsequently hired Richard Claxton, a Greenpeace activist from Yorkshire and helped found a secretive pro-‘Moorsyde’e group (with “about 8 members” a spokesperson told the Press). The aim of all this was to generate a large number of pre-written letters of support that could be magically produced at the December Planning Committee as evidence of support from ‘the silent majority’. Unfortunately for YEL the meeting was deferred and we talked to Richard Claxton.

The scam

Richard Claxton used a scam that had worked very successfully in Yorkshire: using teams of activists to run ‘Yes to Wind’ street stalls where people were asked to show their support for wind by signing pre-written letters. We understand from witnesses that passers-by were told that signing was a vote for renewable energy and against nuclear power.

We doubt whether any of the signatories knew that even the most rabidly pro-wind report to date, which is invariably referenced by the BWEA, Greenpeace and FOE, states: “It would be unrealistic to assume that wind energy would displace any nuclear capacity,” (‘Wind Power in the UK’, Sustainable Development Commission. 2005. p35).

From the scribbled comments on pre-written letters signed in Berwick, there is some doubt as to whether many people knew that they were actually signing letters supporting an individual planning application. We hear that similar tactics have been used at West Hinkley, another YEL scheme in the West Country, with signatures being harvested at the Glastonbury Festival and from holiday makers stopping at service areas on the M5.

The company have even stooped to using children at Berwick High School in an attempt to show support for their scheme. We understand that a representative of YEL’s secretive pro-‘Moorsyde’ group was responsible for a one-sided “poll” of senior pupils on the planning application which was sent to the planning department. Needless to say, MAG was not invited to present the counterbalancing argument.

A meeting with Richard

The small group of young men, obviously not locals and all wearing ‘Yes to Wind’ stickers, stood out at the packed Planning Meeting on 12 December 2006 where, yet again, YEL’s ‘silent majority’ had failed to turn up. The few supporters present were mainly landowners involved in ‘Moorsyde’ and a neighbouring project and YEL’s undercover team from Yorkshire. The ‘Moorsyde’ part of the business was deferred at the last moment by the Borough Council and we all trooped outside. With a colleague, I talked for some time to a young man in a black beanie who, with a friend, was rather vaguely, “visiting friends” and “on the way to Scotland”. We now discover from the Press that he is actually working under cover for Your Energy.

While Richard and his friend were amiable enough (we were on the point of inviting them along to the pub to continue the discussion), it soon became apparent that they knew absolutely nothing about the area, local wind power schemes or the ‘Moorsyde’ proposal.

As we stood talking outside Ancroft Village Hall, Richard was agreeing with nearly everything we said about the sensible deployment of renewable technologies, including wind, in the area, so it is a particular disappointment to discover what he was really up to.

If ‘Moorsyde’ had been approved in December, it might have benefited one foreign-registered, speculative development company, but it would have sabotaged Arup’s independent study into windfarm development in the area. Interestingly, the YEL’s local pro-‘Moorsyde’ group has continued to parrot an anti-Arup line that manages to contradict national, regional and local planning guidance on the deployment of wind energy.

It is to be hoped that Richard and his friends will find the time to visit the site area, talk to us (we have repeatedly attempted to talk to pro-wind activists) and discover the facts of the case. It is easy to get masses of signatures on pro forma letters which people think are expressing support for renewables and their opposition to global warming, but real-world planning applications are slightly more complicated.

We understand that Richard deals in simplistic messages. I would happily wear a ‘Yes to Wind’ badge if there was room on it for ‘but not inappropriate schemes in inappropriate locations’. MAG has always expressed support for small, embedded wind power, but we do not think that a large array of turbines in this location - a lowland, settled area with a particularly poor wind resource and a local economy that is overwhelmingly reliant on tourist business - makes any sense. This is particularly the case when the proposal clearly contravenes planning guidance as expressed in the Regional Renewable Energy Strategy, the Regional Spatial Strategy and the Local Plan.

But Your Energy’s undercover activist turns up.

The debate on ‘the right renewable for this area’ at the Border Green Festival in July 2007 went ahead without the speakers who were listed to speak on behalf of the wind developers.

Joe Lannon spokesman for the secretive ‘www@Moorsyde’ group, and David Sanders of BREWS, the Barmoor supporters group sponsored by Pendragon PR for Force 9 Energy, both failed to show up. They seem as averse to public debate as their groups are to public meetings.

In their absence, Bill Short of the Kirkwhelpington Renewable Energy Forum, generously volunteered to step in and speak in favour of community wind power, which MAG has long supported.

Though Your Energy‘s local representative didn't show up, Richard Claxton, the Yorkshire activist and former Hull and E. Yorkshire Greenpeace organiser who works for Your Energy, was there. As ever, he was willing to talk to the press but not to the public. (See below for more on Richard Claxton’s ‘work’ for Your Energy).

Richard Claxton, former Greenpeace Area Networker, Hull and East Yorkshire.
Your Energy’s ‘secret agent’.

A local debate on local issues?

While confirming that he was still working for Your Energy, Mr Claxton told us it was his day off. He then spoilt the effect by sidling up to the Journal’s reporter and giving him a statement on why Messrs Sanders and Lannon had failed to appear.

He told the Journal that they had cried off because: “The local pro-group expected a local debate on local issues.”

There is a certain irony in Mr Claxton, a Yorkshire activist employed by Your Energy, a Bahamas-registered, London-based speculative wind developer speaking for Joe Lannon and David Sanders who are protesting about non-locals being involved in a debate!

There is an additional irony in Mr Claxton being so ‘active’ in our area when the Greenpeace ‘Active Supporters’ website page for the East Yorkshire group, of which he was formerly listed as area organiser, was recently telling us that it “is no longer active”!

Of course, Mr Claxton has been a professional activist since 03/05/2005 when he incorporated his limited company, ‘Green Campaigns’. He is currently being hired by a number of less scrupulous wind developers who want to undermine legitimate local objections to their schemes. Mr Claxton recently submitted a letter in evidence to a public inquiry in Tynedale, Northumberland, which reveals more of his activities (click here, PDF document).

There is some surprise that Your Energy are employing someone with a criminal conviction for aggravated trespass. NPower, their neighbouring developers at Toft Hill, cannot be too amused that Your Energy are paying someone who was involved in the occupation of their Didcot power station. This is estimated to have cost the company £690,000. (See local press).

Richard Claxton’s business site.

Stopping rational debate.

Mr Claxton was with (but carefully kept his distance from) a gang of Yorkshire activists who had travelled up specifically to hound Dr John Constable of the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) who was speaking in the debate.

One of their number, Jeff MacDonald, of the Yorkshire group ‘East Riding Action 4 Wind’, did try shouting down Dr Constable, but was soon dissuaded from disrupting the debate by the event organisers, the Chair and members of the audience who wanted to hear the speakers.

Jeff MacDonald (with microphone) of ‘East Riding Action 4 Wind’
in action.

Mr MacDonald was later given the opportunity to address a question to the panel but then proceeded to deliver an incomprehensible tirade of abuse directed at Dr John Constable. Much of this attack seemed to be based on his confusion of Dr John Constable, who is a well known former academic at Cambridge University and who is now Policy and Research Director of REF, with another John Constable who is senior UK economist for Exxon Mobil!

An attempt to discuss wind issues with Jeff MacDonald afterwards confirmed not only his lack of research skills but also a surprising ignorance of the basic facts of wind power generation.

MAG has long attempted to involve local environmental activists - and even 'foreign' activists such as Richard Claxton and Jeff MacDonald - in an open, public debate on renewables and the sustainable development of this area of Northumberland.

Sadly, we have discovered that some so-called environmental activists are much more interested in activism than in boring stuff like the realities of energy production, transmission and consumption and how they relate to questions of regeneration and sustainability in rural areas.

Our correspondent in Angus sends news of yet another attempt to stuff the response files with pre-written letters:

“Jeff Macdonald and Richard Claxton came to Angus to support the Novera/West Coast Energy proposal at the Mountboy site, Rossie Moor, on the edge of the Montrose Basin wild bird reserve. The site is on the edge of an SSSI.

They were collecting signed pre-printed letters of support from people in Brechin, Montrose and Arbroath.

They set up an attractive stall in busy parts of Arbroath, Montrose and Brechin. People were encouraged to look at an array of colourful leaflets and information displayed on their stall, which also had literature publicising Greenpeace.

At the end of their conversation, they then asked people to sign-up to show their support. A clipboard was put in front of them with pre-printed letters of support, addressed to Angus planners, for the Novera/West Coast Energy - Rossie Moor turbine development. People, by then ready to move away, were willingly signing-up.

They were also allowing children to sign-up. I noticed children signing and confronted Jeff. His defence was that the children wanted to do it. Jeff MacDonald admitted he did not know where the proposed turbine site was in relation to his stall in Montrose - He could not even point to the site's direction. When trying to counter our claims that the site was unsuitable all he did was refer people to the Novera brochure which he was handing out, with the comment that this would answer their queries. When we pointed out the omissions and errors in the brochure he was silenced. He appeared to know nothing about the site and we only heard him arguing that wind turbines (presumably anywhere) were important to stop global warming.

Richard Claxton said very little and seemed to be merely supporting Jeff.”

(See posts above and below for more about Mr Claxton’s work for Your Energy Ltd.
Views of Scotland have produced a briefing paper that gives more details of the activities of eco-activists wh have been hired by developers to influence planning applications. PDF file).

THE 'SILENT MAJORITY' SAY NO

The leader of Alnwick District Council, Heather Cairns, was defeated in local elections in 2006 by Robert Thorp, who has been leading the fight against the Middlemoor and Wandylaw proposals.

Mr Thorp’s campaign centred on the wind farm issue and obviously struck a chord with voters.

Mrs Cairns had voted in favour of the Middlemoor and other wind proposals, going against the views of most local people and most of her council colleagues.

OBJECTION!