Most politicians live in towns and cities and don’t care about the countryside, according to War Horse author Michael Morpurgo, who believes that building a them-and-us culture between urban and rural Britain will lead to serious consequences.
Speaking at a meeting of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, he insisted that the only way forward in achieving a future for the British countryside was for people to better understand it when promoting wind and solar farms in particular.
“Most politicians live in towns – that’s where the votes are,” he declared. “A lot of these people are intelligent, but they don’t have any connection with the countryside.
“Take the recent floods in Somerset – we could all see the farmers were going through hell, but people in London weren’t particularly concerned until the floods came down a river called The Thames.”
Referring to new forms of electricity, he pointed out that there was no question of the need for renewable energy, then added: “The only question then is: how do we do this?
“I think there are ways, and there are bad ways. I was driving to Cornwall towards Tintagel and I saw wind turbines of all sorts and sizes.
“When it is out of proportion with the landscape and the architecture around it, I would be against it. I’d be against a scatting of these things so that they dominate our landscape.”
The children’s author, who lives in Devon, said he was concerned about the “great size” of the machines at a time when tide and wave power were not being adequately explored.
And he added: “It’s about people making money. I don’t think things should be done on that basis – they should be done on what is best for the community.
“Things have to be done by consensus. If we have local councils and a voice locally – that must hold sway over what happens around our villages.
“But if a government comes in and says – you should be dong this – and permissions come through from on-high, we’re actually saying, ‘We don’t care what local people think’.
“Then what is the point in local democracy?”
