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		Letter to the Editor Various local newspapers - Thursday 10th November 2005 Dear Sir, I was delighted to read your recent coverage highlighting local anger at the proposed wind factory at Airfield Farm, on the Northamptonshire / Bedfordshire borders. On Sunday, I attended an exhibition at Podington organised by the Committee to Limit Onshore Windfarm Development, CLOWD which are opposed to this proposal of erecting nine 400ft turbines and wish to offer my full support to the campaign. Although the actual site of the turbines is a few hundred yards from my constituency borders, the impact is so vast it will undeniably be felt by my constituents inside the borders of the East Midlands. Aside from the obvious aesthetic impact of the turbines, windfarms are disastrously uneconomic, in both financial and environmental terms. They absorb a great deal of energy in their construction and installation, and deliver an intermittent trickle of power in return. Wind installations require back-up conventional capacity for calm days, so you pay twice for every megawatt of installed capacity. Wind only appears to be viable because of the government's wholly irrational subsidy policy which hoses money at windfarms to the detriment of other renewables. If a future government adopts a more sustainable policy, wind power companies may go bankrupt, leaving landowners with the cost of dismantling these useless monstrosities and restoring the sites. Coupled with the dangers to local wildlife and the damage to the breeding grounds for birds, bats and badgers and constant noise emissions that can be registered at a distance up to 10km away, I believe that they are many more effective ways of generating renewable energy. I urge all in Northamptonshire to support the campaign of CLOWD. Yours faithfully Roger Helmer East Midlands Conservative MEP