PRESS RELEASE 13th October 2007

So the residents of Marshland St James have spoken.  Almost half of the village turned out to vote in the Parish Poll on Thursday the 11th of October and 77% of voters said NO to the proposed wind farm development.  In addition to the recorded votes there were also a number of parishioners who could not vote owing to not being on the Electoral Register (and a number of people who contacted us to ask if they could vote by Proxy because they could not get to the Polling Station). People even turned up from surrounding villages wanting to vote NO.  As it is likely that this development will affect a number of other Parishes including Tilney, Magdalen, Emneth, Outwell, Upwell and Emneth we would encourage you to hold your own Parish Poll.  FLAT will be very happy to provide guidance on how to request such a Poll. 

However the consortium continue to treat you with contempt.  Before the result was even announced one to the consultants acting for the consortium (Bruce Pittigdale) said that there will be a planning application submitted before the end of the year.  At the announcement of the result ie 77% saying NO they were heard to mutter “that’s not so bad”.  So the message from this is obviously do not be complacent – they still appear intent on railroading the application against the express and democratic desire of the Parishioners.  Once a planning application is submitted we will all need to be prepared to fight our corner via the correct channels.  FLAT will provide full details about how to do this at a later date but for the time being you may wish to start drafting out your letters of objection!!

We would also like to take this opportunity to make a direct appeal to our Parish Council.  They seem to have been hiding being the arguments that there is no proposal (which is clearly UNTRUE) and only a few incoming NIMBYS are concerned about the wind farm.  The Parish Poll has clearly shattered both of these arguments and we therefore hope that the Parish Council will start to represent the majority of Parishioners rather than be implicit in pursuing the Chairman’s private agenda which seems to us the be driven by a personal vendetta against our Borough Councillor!!!!
           
To those who voted yes we would respectfully ask them to independently investigate the pros and cons of wind farms and make sure that they have all the facts to hand before they support the development.  If they still feel that the development is a good idea we do of course respect their democratic right to do so.  This is unfortunately not the case with the “other side” who seemed to try and exploit every “possible loophole” to prevent you having the democratic right to vote in a Parish Poll.  Luckily they did not succeed and the resounding NO explains why they tried so hard to block it.

The FLAT Committee