AS an ex control engineer who has worked on industrial and commercial electrical engineering projects, commercial heating air conditioning, and ventilation systems the following comments with regard to the proposed wind farm at the Lenches should be considered.

No wind - no power, back up power station required ... very high winds, turbines shut down to avoid damage - see pictures in ‘The Times’, February 2008 showing a turbine being destroyed by high wind in Denmark - back up power station required ...

Power stations cannot just be switched ‘on and off’. They will continue to back up wind power but at a lower efficiency thus increasing CO2 emissions.

The output for the Lenches scheme and other wind farms is always quoted at the maximum. Any shut down - high winds, maintenance etc means a reduced output - back up power station required.

The Lenches proposal is for 10 turbines producing 20 megawatts. To produce the 2000 megawatts generated by Didcot power station near Swindon would mean 100 turbines turning at full output.

A 27 turbine farm - 67 megawatt - proposed for Cumbria would have been over a five mile ridge west of the M6. Thus to achieve the output of one power station would mean nearly 150 miles of high ground and ridges.

Denmark is held as a pioneer of wind power but in February 2002 Denmark’s leading newspaper Jyllandsposten made this comment about wind power “it is dependent on taxpayers subsidies, in other words politics - wind power is unreliable, very expensive, and is only useful as a small supplementary source of power.”

The one item that is not publicised with regard to wind farms is that the taxpayer provides massive subsidies to the installers and power companies. Then they sell the electricity back to the taxpayer at a profit.

Offshore wind farms are a better proposition but even these require massive investment - again taxpayer subsidised - to connect over long distances to the National Grid.

Reductions in our energy requirements by installing better time and temperature controls and better insulation etc should be our first priority.

The Lenches proposals should be blown away in whatever wind comes by.

JAMES SHUTTLEWORTH, Hawthorn Road, Evesham.