The news on Tuesday that the combined force of the on-shore and off-shore windfarms can generate 20 Giga Watts of electricity now that the Cumbrian off-shore wind farm is on line is very encouraging. The total power provided by all of the nations windfarms is sufficient to supply the needs of 14M homes. Yet despite this there are future opportunities laid out by the Government for new provision as old power stations are due to go off line and yet the Government has denied access to these opportunities to on-shore wind solutions, even though the annual cost of such a solution is estimated as being £30m less than the off-shore solution and £100m less than nuclear or biomass plants for every Giga Watt of capacity that is created. The data from 2017 suggested that 29.3% of the total supply of power to the UK came from renewable sources of which just over half was from wind farms. The opening of the Cumbrian windfarm will push that proportion towards the 1/3 mark for our energy provision. It is clearly nonsensical at times of austerity for the Government to deny low cost solutions from their procurement processes when the only difference is that the maintenance is based on people travelling by land between the turbines as opposed to dealing with the waves and coastline conditions.

The two turbines shown above are on the shore of Shoreham Port and link the Port visually and no doubt electrically to the rest of the windfarm which is located several miles further of the same seafront area. Every night and morning (now the nights and mornings are closing in) the sight of the farm from my house are amazing with a long row of red lights that blink no doubt sending out some sort of message. The closer we get to Christmas the more fitting the lights seem!

Tragically along with the refusal to allow on-shore wind farms to participate in the future procurement processes, there are still politicians who are willing to argue against the wind farms including my absent MEP Mr Farage. The last thing we need is politicians putting up barriers to such valuable assets for our nation, particularly as many of them argue for us to be a sovereign nation!