Plans to install six wind turbines on Romney Marsh near the historic St Augustine’s church at Snave have been abandoned by Ecotricity despite a planning inspector over-ruling local Shepway District Councillors’ objections to plans for a test mast on the site writes Charles Harkness. But plans by Airvolution for four turbines in Old Romney are still going ahead. Last week Rye News commented on “Sharing wind’s benefits”.
Local protest group SOMBRE (Save Our Marsh. Block Rural Exploitation) welcomed both the news about Snave, and the decision of local Hastings and Rye MP Amber Rudd (now Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change) to withdraw subsidies for onshore wind farms a year earlier than expected. SOMBRE argues that other renewable energy options such as tidal solutions offer a more reliable and sustainable alternative to wind, and believe that industrialising the marsh is not the only path to strengthening the local economy. It wants to encourage more green tourism by establishing the marsh as a National Park.