I HAVE just seen Mel Stride's views on onshore wind turbines printed on the front page of the Times, following a very reasonable application by Mi-Grid for a wind turbine having offered several options for the site.

It was very disappointing to see that article in the paper.

Mel's views are somewhat inconsistent with his support for Okehampton College as leaders within our community on the use of renewable energy to reduce their overheads, improve educational facilities, export excess energy to the grid to benefit our community and reduce their dependence on diminishing supplies of fossil fuels.

As a tourism business I would like to highlight the fact that far from being blighted by the installation of the Okehampton College wind turbine on Ball Hill, it has never been commented on by more than one tourist since it was installed in full view from Upcott House B&B.

The one tourist who commented on it admired it and commented on how sensible the college was in installing it to reduce their costs.

Far from industrialising the countryside, tourists are attracted to our business through our use of renewable energy (a 10kw solar array and an air source heat pump for air to water), our carbon savings and our reputation as a 'Green' Tourism provider and are generally extremely interested in the cost savings that generating our own energy can make.

Since the government made their historic U-turn on their support for renewable sources of energy in favour of the overly vocal NIMBYs and the Countryside Alliance, we have not noticed any reduction by the energy companies who continue to increase their tariffs.

Landowners and businesses are not being greedy, they are justifiably trying reduce their energy overheads and costs.

Has the Countryside Alliance considered the costs for farmers who are energy dependent on fossil fuels to produce our food and how their costs increase our costs for food?

Perhaps the government should be a little more transparent about the subsidies that the public are paying towards nuclear and the fossil fuel industries then we might be making judgements based on a level playing field regarding renewable energy.

Tourism has been more adversely effected by the effects of climate change — railway lines hanging in the sea, coastal erosion and Somerset under water. 

Personally, we are so concerned by the future energy gap and the inadequacies of the grid to cope with grid connections for renewable sources of energy because we are off the gas and water grids, that we are seriously looking at going off grid to ensure that we can continue to trade or pitching in with our neighbours to improve the grid so that we can increase our ability to produce our own energy and contribute to the grid as well.

Fortunately battery storage is progressing at a reasonable pace that will make this possible. Far from being greedy we are desperate to generate our own electricity before the grid collapses through over consumption by the general population.

 It is about time that some of us and in particular our politicians started to look at the bigger picture.

Kay Bickley

Upcott House B&B

Okehampton