Why can't Blues be more Green

10:16am Tuesday 15th January 2008

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Proposals for six wind turbines in Hove have been delayed again - but not because they would not generate electricity. In a typically trenchant broadside, The Argus's award-winning environmental co-ordinator SARAH LEWIS, below, blames the newly installed Conservative administration and says the future of green in a Blue city looks bleak.

For those who, like Don Quixote, have an irrational fear of windmills, it may be something of a relief to know plans for wind turbines on King's House in Hove have once again been held back.

Last Wednesday, Brighton and Hove City Council's sustainability commission met to discuss the application for six turbines on top of the council building and one on the lawn outside, which was withdrawn late last year.

The motion to resubmit the application was blocked in what many of those attending have described as a farce.

The commission was set up in 2002, the first of its kind in the country.

It was a pioneering project which aimed to develop and implement sustainable policies within all aspects of the council's work.

During the past six years, it has been central to an impressive array of green awards.

Last year, Thurstan Crocket, head of sustainability, won the national Global To Local Foundation Award for placing climate change at the heart of the culture, policies and practices of Brighton and Hove City Council.

It has helped us achieve the status of most sustainable city in Britain.

But the events of last Wednesday suggest our trailblazing commission is fast becoming the victim of a deep greenwashing within the new Tory-tinged council.

It wants us to believe it is green but its actions say otherwise.

After the turbine application was withdrawn, the commission was promised the opportunity to review the project with a "full and frank" discussion.

However, somewhere along the line it was decided participants at such a debate did not require any kind of technical specifications for the turbines or even wind speed for the proposed locations. Instead, commission members were given a woefully inadequate "strengths and weaknesses" comparison of various low and zero carbon technologies in no particular setting.

It was a meaningless document as all renewable technologies are site specific - there's no point putting wind turbines in a sunny spot and solar panels on a windy coast.

The discussion was further muted by commission convenor Denise Cobb who, in the previous meeting, imposed a rule that people may only make three points per agenda item, putting a cap on anyone speaking at length.

This was an unusual measure for a group whose main purpose is a discussion forum. The only advantage was to allow Councillor Cobb home in time for tea.

Conservative councillor Jan Young made an impassioned plea for her poor constituents, whose lives would be "destroyed" by the appearance of the turbines.

Dare I suggest death of a loved one or terminal illness might lead a person to feel their life had been destroyed. The installation of clean energy technologies is less likely to cause such destruction.

Coun Cobb failed to mention that worries of a blighted landscape, in fact the entire issue of whether turbines are suitable for a particular location, are matters for the planning sub-committee, a fact which would have contributed to her quest for brevity.

The final vote saw three Labour and two Greens in favour of resubmitting the application to let the appropriate people make the final decision.

Five Tories voted against, with the chairwoman using her casting vote to fail it on the basis there was not enough information available to make a proper decision. It is worth pointing out the provision of adequate information is the responsibility of the chairwoman.

There are now only two more commission meetings before the council moves away from its committee system of decision making and rushes headlong into the new leader and cabinet format.

In the run-up to last year's local elections, the Conservatives gave themselves the slogan "vote Blue, go green". Considering leader David Cameron's personal enthusiasm for wind turbines, it seems incongruous for this project, and the sustainability commission itself, to have faced such turmoil.

But the reality of voting Blue is fast becoming clear and it looks something like this: councillors using, or abusing, the sustainability commission in an attempt to bypass planning laws; committee members introducing measures to gag speakers and frustrating the running of the commission; and a reticence to speak of formal plans for the commission after the council shake-up in the spring.

All of which does not, to me at least, suggest a council with the environment truly at its heart.

Perhaps Coun Cobb and friends would do well to listen to Don Quixote's sidekick Sancho Panza, who said: "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone."

Do you agree with Sarah or is she selling the Tories short? Have your say below.