On Thursday December 7, Voice for Walcha was granted a session with Walcha Council, allowing the community group to raise several very important issues concerning Winterbourne Wind Farm. The session opened with a report on the survey of Walcha community’s attitude to the wind farm project. Then it followed with a video of a selection of individual community members expressing their feelings and opinions about the various aspects of the project. After that a number of significant failings were highlighted in the 4000 page Environmental Impact Statement published by Vestas, particularly in regard to the depletion of crucial local resources of water and gravel during the construction and post-construction phases of the project, plus a frank outline of looming road and traffic issues as well as a brief look at the major matter of decommissioning twenty years or so in the future. The session ended with a reaching out by Voice for Walcha to help Council adopt a clear realistic set of guidelines for renewable energy development in the future.

This was a frank, honest and open meeting that put a number of key, crucially important issues front and centre as needing Council’s attention. In fact it was so important that Voice for Walcha has decided to make a podcast of it available so that the whole Walcha community can also be made aware of the important matters raised in the Council session.

The video mentioned in the podcast can be viewed below.