LETTER: Think further than the next election

‘Think globally, act locally’: how disappointing that our Horsham DC planning committee forgot that useful maxim, preferring N.I.M.B.Y. instead, when they rejected planning applications for three local solar PV ‘farms’ this week, primarily on the grounds of stopping ‘industrialisation’ of the rural landscape.
By The Newsroom
Published 27th Apr 2014, 07:00 BST
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This was especially ironic in the wake of the recent UN report (IPCC WGIII AR5) on potentially catastrophic man-made climate change. One presumes that they really have no care for the future well-being of our descendants?

Of course our older generation can sit back and do nothing (except whine on about rising fuel prices and the odd weather patterns): the effects of today’s decisions will only become apparent (and, by then, completely irreversible) in 30-plus years’ time due to inherent lags in the earth’s climate system.

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However I, for one, believe that this ‘inconvenient truth’ needs to be faced and opportunities to use significant low carbon technologies, with immediate pay-back, to harvest renewable energy must be grasped now.

The Huddlestone solar farm alone would have harvested sufficient electrical energy to offset, on average, about 75 per cent of the annual electricity consumption of the parishes of Bramber, Beeding and Steyning, whilst the land could still be used for agriculture (sheep grazing) and potentially provide improved wildlife habitats compared to its current arable usage.

Maybe our councillors will think further than the next election date next time?!?

MIKE CROKER

Maudlyn Park, Bramber