THANK you for printing my letter (June 16). I would've hoped that Mel Stride in his column on the opposite page might have answered some of my questions this week, however, towing the party line, perhaps?

I would also like to respond to Louis Enderson's letter last week. Yes, it is about tomorrow and although we Brits are known for moaning I for one am happy to voice my concerns over one person making a lot of the 'folding green' when the so called 'green' technology that he wants to erect is flawed in so many ways, in fact it's not exactly new technology but the fact that the wind doesn't always blow is centuries old.

I cannot see the sense of heavily latching onto and relying on the, sporadic at best, natural phenomenon that is wind when as an island we are surrounded by an eight hundred times denser, thus more productive source, known as water.

Why are we not using wave, rivers, tidal and dam technology to our advantage? We have Meldon Reservoir and Roadford Lake nearby and rivers running throughout our countryside — why are these not being harnessed in a better way?

There is also biomass, geothermal energy, radiant energy, bio fuel, solar and AD*, why is solar not being taken up, could it be the subsidies have been cut? Why is AD not being used, we are a farming community after all!

And yes, a child born to a house with a wind turbine up the road may well not believe them to be eyesores but, going on all the evidence from other countries further down this road than us, that child will more than likely be born into having to pay extortionate consumer bills, and if they're unlucky enough to live near a turbine may suffer from medical problems, struggle to find a job as all the tourist jobs will no longer exist, and they will unfortunately have little regard for the natural countryside.

It has been reported that 'England's domestic tourism board is bidding for nearly £30-million to fund a lavish marketing campaign to stop Britons holidaying aboard. Visit England's campaign, provisionally titled 'The Time to be in England', squares with the Government's plan to put tourism at the heart of the economic recovery'. The Government needs to make up its mind.

Joanne Stone

Bowerland

Okehampton

* AD (Anaerobic digestion) is a series

of processes in which micro-organisms break down biodegradable material in

the absence of oxygen, used for

industrial or domestic purposes to

manage waste and/or to release energy.