MR KNIGHT is both whimsical and poetic in his rose-tinted view of the Navitus Bay wind farm (August 27), but I have to confess not seeing it like this.

Where he sees graceful technology, I see a lifetime cost of £6.5 billion paid through substantially increased electricity bills.

Where he imagines proud locals, I am conscious of the anger of approximately 90 per cent of residents who voted against it at public meetings.

When he talks about modernity, I know that no-one today builds a wind farm without massive subsidies; about civilisation, I say that it should progress not return to out-dated wind power from previous centuries; about responsibility, I maintain the government’s job is to help the country not reduce people’s standard of living with unnecessary extra taxation.

The letter continues with the ‘marvelling visitors’ and the ‘delighted fishermen’.

Perhaps we should remember the 5,000 job losses in tourism, the potential loss of the World Heritage Site, the likely increase in carbon dioxide emissions, the destabilisation of the National Grid and the industrialisation of our existing beautiful coastline.

BILL HOODLESS

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