The wind vandals of Chelker are back, despite their proposal being unanimously rejected by Craven District councillors in February last year. The dream of multi-million pound juicy profits clearly overcoming any lingering feelings the Kelda directors may have had about ‘this sensitive location’ (Mark Fox, Kelda Water, August 18, 2010) Over two days last week, Kelda (whose principal asset is Yorkshire Water) held a public consultation at Bracken Ghyll golf club in Addingham. So why did they hold their consultation in the parish of Addingham (Bradford Met) when the wind farm is in Draughton Parish (Craven District)?

Draughton Village Hall was certainly available and quite capable of handling the enormous crowd of attendees, rumoured to be 60 over two days. Perhaps Kelda didn’t want anyone from Draughton to attend their exhibition, but maybe the proximity of Draughton village stocks influenced their decision.

Furthermore, why did Kelda leaflet over 700 homes in Addingham in early August whilst carefully avoiding Draughton homes, until ticked off by Draughton Parish Council? Tut, tut.

Kelda’s leaflet drop also contained a letter from their chief executive, Richard Flint. I quote just a few of the carefully crafted phrases.

1. ‘We have significantly reduced the height of our proposed turbines, and careful positioning of those turbines will minimise visual impact’. Crikey. To whom? Blind bats, perhaps? These things are twice the present size. 2. ‘Once operational, wind farms produce no pollution at all’. So, no noise? No strobing effects? No flashing red lights?

3. ‘We are undertaking a range of environmental and landscape studies’. And just who are the independent consultants doing this job? Yes, it is Arup & Partners. And who is paying Arup? You guessed it – it’s Kelda. Sounds like rustlers counting sheep!

At least this time round they didn’t try and tell us that their mission was to save the planet. On August 3 this year, chief executive for The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), Shaun Spiers, visited Chelker and described the site as ‘industrial vandalism in one of England’s finest landscapes’.

Dr John Constable, the chief executive of the Renewable Energy Foundation, described the proximity to Chelker families as ‘exceptional and uniquely brutal’. We decided to check up on Kelda’s owners. Trawling our way through seven different holding companies, one of them in an offshore tax haven, we finally arrived at the majority owner who turned out to be Citibank in the USA, still on ‘life support’ from the US Treasury and following a whopping injection of $45 billion of tax payers’ money.

Perhaps Kelda are hoping to rescue Citibank’s dire situation with all those hidden taxes on the bottom of our electric bills, being discreetly wafted to their bottom line via Chelker’s turbine blades. Perhaps Mr Flint might also explain why Kelda paid £30m less tax to the British Government in 2009 despite a record year of profits from Yorkshire Water.

Kelda looks nothing better than a bunch of spivs who care not one jot for Draughton residents. The game’s up and I suspect they know it.

Peter Rigby

Chairman, Parishioners Against Chelker Turbines (PACT)