Landowners offered money by wind farm developers

Developers of wind farm are offering land owners money as compensation for letting wind energy turbines to be set up on their property.

In correspondence with landowners in Capheaton village close to Kirkwhelpington, in the Tyne Valley Scottish Power is giving up to one thousand and five hundred sterling pounds annually for the next two and a half decades for every ten wind turbines a landowner agrees to ‘host’. This translates to an annual income of over two and a half million sterling pounds.

The landowners who received the letters were also promised a thousand sterling pounds if they signed an exclusive contract with Scottish Power and then many more thousand pounds for letting the firm develop the wind energy turbines on their land. The huge amounts of money would however materialise when the wind energy turbines were finally erected.

The location of the land being targeted neighbours another site where another wind farm is ruffling feathers. Already there is a public inquiry in progress and this has caused the new development to be criticised by anti-wind farm lobbyists.

One of the members of the Campaign for Responsible Energy Development In Tynedale which is a lobby group created locals opposing the erection of wind energy turbines in the area Carol Brodie, said that the amounts of money the power firms were handing out were causing a ‘gold rush’.

Carol Brodie excused the farmers saying that they couldn’t be blamed for accepting the money since things have been difficult for them recently. She instead heaped the blame on poor policies by the government.

www.scottishpower.com