An interesting snippet has arrived concerning an act of rebellion by Dinnington Town Council, at it’s meeting on Monday, 11th February.
The whole council spoke with one voice and rejected the complete Core Strategy of RMBC!
It takes a lot to get any council united in opposition in this way as the normal practice throughout Rotherham, is for this kind of RMBC proposal to be accepted, on the nod.
What has got them so upset?
It could have something to do with the anger in the town at having services stripped from them, being used as a dumping ground and of course the Greenbelt!
Rotherham Politics 
The greenbelt is my guess, although it’s only a guess. Especially if they end up with a big wind farm to look at over to the north-east. I guess Laughton won’t be too happy either, or Firbeck, Gildingwells, Letwell, etc.
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I am thinking of standing as an Indie in 2014 in Dinnington for RMBC – but am happy to stand aside for someone even more local and disgruntled and affected by RMBC madness than me…
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All I can do is salute Dinnington Parish council. They voted 13-0 against the Brethren school, while my own Parish council Anston, 4 vote against and 2 for, 7 abstaining. I would like to see Anston parish council put up a bit more fight. Somebody on the council seems to be pushing them in a different direction to the will of Anston people Interesting to see that at the Brethren planning meeting in Rotherham, 13 voted against and 1 for, who was the one, put your guesses in the post. I love the windfarm at Loscar, it adds to the environment and supplies enough energy for 2000 or more houses a year. I would prefer to see a wind farm around Anston to supply all our energy, so that we are sustainable, rather than additional houses.
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You want to save the green belt by not building houses on it, but build a wind farm? How’s that work then?
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A village the size of Anston wouldn’t need less than 10 wind turbines to supply all the electricity for a year, I realise some days aren’t as windy as others, so it will be necessary to use other sources. In places like German they have fields of solar panels, we have plenty of old mounds created from the pit spoils where they could be installed. The circumference around Anston must be well over 10 miles, so a wind turbine spaced every mile isn’t a big deal. The circumference of a wind turbine tower is only a couple of meters, the sheep can graze around them. People need to go up to Loscar at Harthill, where three turbines exist, to see how well they blend into the countryside. We have to start creating more sustainable communities and 10 wind turbines will cause a fraction of the destruction of 1000’s of new houses, without eating up into any of the countryside. You should see the bill for closing down an old Nuclear power station, which is never factored into the cost of producing the energy.
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timawells: What about the tv reception, and are they safe? That one at Catcliffe lost one of its blades! I love wind farms as long as they are well away from where I live!
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You need to go to Loscar at Harthill and have a look at an example, its miles away from any houses. I think that is a red herring that they will effect digital tv signals or even a sky dish, there is no reason for them to do that, a car has a suppressor to stop it damaging a radio signal, from the dynamo. It could be dangerous for any birds flying by, but there is no danger to humans. It was a bit strange when I cycled past, as it is quite hypnotic. You will find some pictures here http://www.hypnosis-sheffield.com/nlp-hypnotherapy-sheffield-sustainbility
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Nice pics!
The danger to birds (and bats!) comes mainly when turbines are built where they interfere with migration routes. (I can dig up sources for that if you are interested.)
Cats are a bigger danger to birds.
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One of the three Catcliffe turbines lost a blade on two separate occasions. I seem to remember that they then took it down.
Such failures however appear very very uncommon:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/30/wind-turbine-blown-down-devon
All tall structures can impact, particularly analogue, terrestial TV reception, but mitigating techniques are available. Given the speed of the migration to both digital and internet based reception, it can’t be seen as a reason not to build wind farms.
Click to access tall_structures.pdf
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Regular reader I don’t believe that the turbines are the answer to all our problems and that over time they will become more efficient and safer to our wild life. I know they have them out in the north sea, where it can be very turbalent. I would like to see more wave technology and they are talking about shale gas. I personally have concerns about pollution and instability with shale gas exploration
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Tidal power is the way to go, the wind doesn’t always blow but tides will continue as long as there is a moon and to a lesser extent, the sun.
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Wouldn’t tidal power be a great way to stimulate our manufacturing base and created good clean energy for the future. We could then start to export these type of products, like we did in the 50’s and 60’s. Creating high value jobs.
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At last a council has stood up to RMBC and acted upon the wishes of the people that elected them. Now hopefully more people will see that we can stand up and fight back as 1 in the interests of all. And win. Then maybe we can start to tackle the big issues, starting with the devastating cuts to public services in Rotherham and the failures of the scandal hit RMBC themselves.
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Its time that the so called labour cllrs in rotherham who are happy to pick up their allowances/pay and exes find their backbones.
They are not fighting the cuts. They r servants of this con dem govt.
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We have gone way off topic-again. This thread is about RMBC’s plans to destroy a swathe of greenbelt that does not affect the majority of Councillors of the Central Committee of the Supreme Soviet. So far the results of the Central Committee’s ‘consultations’ in this area are:
Dinnington PC 1-RMBC 0. Anston PC 0-RMBC 1.
If any members of this forum intends to stand as a Parish Councillor let me know because I’ve got a template leaflet you may find useful and wish to use and/or modify.
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As a Dinnington resident and a regular attender at the town council meeting it should not be underestimated what effect we the public had on the decision made by the council. I brought up the subject of the closure of the council offices in Dinnington, this lit the blue touchpaper. The proposals are that the jobs done by the Dinnington office staff 5 days a week will be carried out in the library two days a week. It gets better the duty will be carried out by the library staff who will be trained up for this. What has riled the council is that our library hours are to be cut, even though it has one of the highest usage in the area; this also goes for the council offices. As was stated in the meeting we are having our facilities cut yet there are plans to build more houses in our area. When I pointed out that the reason the RMBC attack Dinnington was because we have a pusillanimous set of Town Councillors and Borough councillors they seemed, with the help of the members of the green belt group to be galvanised into action. But lets be clear if we had not been there this decision would not have been made. Power to the people. Just so we are clear I will be once again standing as an independent in 2014.
Dave Smith
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“… we are having our facilities cut yet there are plans to build more houses in our area.” idiocy!
“…I will be once again standing as an independent in 2014” Sanity!
Good luck!
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Anston have a Parish meeting this Monday at the welfare hall. Kick off 7-30pm. I hope everybody effected by building on the green belt in this area will be there. As a resident of Anston I am allowed to ask one question and this is it. What is each councillor personally and collectively going to do with the other members, to ensure that there is no further erosion of the green belt around Anston?
Bearing in mind that Dinnington Town council have just rejected the core strategy with one voice!
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