Enough bluster. It’s time I faced the voters

They’re building a wind farm, six turbines the height of Salisbury cathedral spire, on the hilltop half a mile from your home. Would you say, on balance, that this will increase or decrease the value of your property? Hmm. Tough one. Let’s try and work it out by carefully weighing up the pros and cons.

Cons

• The lovely view which was one of the reasons you bought the house has been destroyed.

• From now on your days will be plagued by ‘shadow flicker’ and your nights by irregular whumping and low-frequency noise which may cause you insomnia, raised cortisol levels, stress, anxiety, disorientation, panic attacks, depression.

• Your once-happy village community is now bitterly divided between the minority who supported the wind farm (the landowner; anyone else in the pay of Big Wind) and the majority who opposed it but had it forced on them nonetheless by Planning Inspector diktat.

• The raptors you used to enjoy watching circling over the hilltop in search of prey will soon by sliced and diced by the turbine blades. As will the neighbourhood bats.

• Any tourist income your village may once have received will dwindle to nothing, for people only like walking or staying in B&Bs in beauty spots — not ex-beauty spots.

So that’s the most immediate cons taken care of. Now, the pros.

Pros

• The wind turbine company has promised to buy your village a nice new hall.

So that’s all right, isn’t it?

No it’s not all right. It makes me sick. A monstrous injustice is being perpetrated against the people of rural Britain and what amazes and disgusts me is that so many institutions which ought to know better are complicit in it. I don’t just mean the coalition government, though they’re probably the worst.