Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Giant offshore wind turbines invade UK beaches! Will local residents resist?
By Kwok W. Wan
This time, it was a total surprise. In a taxi on the road towards the beach, Gunfleet Sands appeared out of no-where and without warning. Huge offshore wind turbines lined the English horizon.
My last encounter had been a far more distant affair, requiring a helicopter to see Robin Rigg in Cumbria, but Dong’s offshore wind farm was visible on the shore, visible from a car inland actually, and the giant machines pop up and startle you.
As we drove over the Frinton-on-Sea rail track earlier, the taxi driver pointed to the automatic electric barriers and said they replaced the hand-operated gates only last year, after the rail company overcame a three-year battle by residents who resisted the change.
Due to the conservative nature of the town, the driver said there was a myth that the town didn’t have a pub or fish and chip shop. But it wasn’t true. It got its first pub and fish and chip shop about ten years ago, he said.
