Synergy – politics and micros

I attended a very heated public meeting this week-aboutsiting test model sea wind-turbines locally- the crunch being that these 200 metre high turbines are to be situated on land thus making maintenance, development and testing etc. much easier.

 

The idea is excellent – but the complaint is that too many turbines are to be erected on the site, leading to noise and light pollution of our lovely night skies.
The representatives from the council and from the companies involved were clearly prepared for opposition and equally clearly not prepared to change position so a lively meeting ensued. I was interested to read an old blog entry which dealt with the topic of Sensationalism and the press  – the meeting I attended was kept very controlled although feelings ran high. The local focus group presented well-prepared, well thought out arguments, but the Council representatives did not appear to be willing to use the synergy and interest shown by the inhabitants for a mutually beneficent result. It’s early days yet, maybe we’ll reach a sensible compromise between vested interests, money and citizen’s interest.
The reason for blogging about the topic here (which is meant to concentrate on topics of interest to us micros) is that it is important to take an interest in local politics, to do our best to influence things in our local sphere.

It has taken me a long time to realise this…!

Helen