I absolutely agree with my hon. and learned Friend on that issue. In 2004, I was thought to be a strong supporter of renewable energy. I campaigned for the principle of renewable energy. When the project that impacted on my area came forward, I said that it would damage the view of renewable energy in a part of Britain that was the most supportive of it—the Centre for Alternative Technology is in the middle of my constituency—and, indeed, the opposite is now true. Some 2,000 people came to Cardiff to protest on the steps of the Assembly with me. The impression is that we are now anti-renewable energy, but that has been driven by this obsession with onshore wind. It seems crazy to me.
I have a few points to make before I finish. The first is on cumulative impact. How can cumulative impact not be a major part of planning? I was a planning committee chairman for seven years, and with every development the cumulative impact was a hugely important factor. Suddenly, as with everything else, there are special rules for onshore wind, and cumulative impact hardly matters. We are seeing huge proliferations close together. We must pay real attention to cumulative impact and take into account the new pylons that the National Grid has to build as part of that development.
The second point is about the individual turbines that are popping up everywhere. The local planning authority has to have a policy that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) said, accepts a certain number, where they support the community. We
would support a farmer who wants to use the policy to develop their own energy production. Local planning authorities, however, do not have a policy and are approving those turbines on a hit and miss basis. I have seen them go through when the planning officer has recommended refusal, and we are destroying the most beautiful parts of our country.
Finally, we need to have an appreciation of landscape at the core of our planning policies. Before coming to this place, for three years I was the president of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, which is the equivalent body to the Campaign to Protect Rural England. We worked together. It is heartbreaking to see policies being adopted that pay almost no regard to the value of landscape. The planning inspectors have got one view only, which is this mythical target. They say, “We have listened to what you have told us and we accept everything, but it is trumped by the target.” It is devastating for rural parts of Britain, it is devastating for the south-west and it is devastating for my constituency. It is time that the Government recognised that and came forward with a policy based on a moratorium.
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