Hard wind


The row over wind power rages more fiercely than ever. In Norfolk, the death of one would-be wind farmer is being linked to a battle over a big new development. Throughout the country, opponents complain of unbearable noise and uninhabitable houses. But are things really that bad? Stephen Moss investigates Thursday May 24, 2007The Guardian
Marshland St James is an isolated, functional, centre-less village, little more than a ribbon of houses along a country road surrounded by farms. In the far west of Norfolk, close to the borders with Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, it is a place that locals describe as "bandit country". It is not a place you expect an issue of national importance to find its focus. But on Monday, just a few days before the government released its white paper on energy, a local farmer was found dead in a drainage canal close to his home. A statement from his family linked his death to a battle over wind farms that has torn the village apart.