I don't know where those figures come from as personally I have never been given the opportunity to enter such a poll, nor do I know of anyone else who has.

I think they are monstrosities, and they don't appear to me to be very efficient. Take the four windmills at Chelker Reservoir, near Bolton Abbey as an example. I pass them frequently, and during all the years I have done so I don't think that I have ever seen all four working. Either there was no wind so none was revolving or one or more of the rotors was on the ground, apparently under repair. Not very efficient
I suggest.

I have read various articles in your paper where the writer has said that windmills are unobtrusive. From the road near Leeds Bradford
Airport, I can count 23 of the things with the naked eye. They are situated near to Hebden Bridge, some 30 miles away. I call that very obtrusive.

Similarly, those at Chelker can be seen from all over Upper Wharfedale –real eyesores.

I'm all for "green" power, so why not use water? We are well endowed with rivers in Yorkshire. Indeed, I have lived and worked near the Wharfe for almost 40 years and have never known it to run dry.

Almost 200 years ago, Capelshaw Beck, a 10 feet wide stream now running into Thruscross reservoir, was harnessed to power four full-sized cotton mills, employing hundreds of people. Surely with the advent of hydro-electric turbines, we have made a little progress since those days.

The water would be diverted through a small goit off the river, through the turbine and back into the river to drive another one, or as many as you like further downstream. Nature properly harnessed and no waste whatever all year round. That is what I call efficient and thinking "green".


Let's have proper punishments, please


From; Paul Emsley, Hellifield, North Yorkshire.

A DOCTOR pinches other people's work and he gets a slap on the wrist. An MP pinches £140,000 expenses and gets banned from the House of Commons for 10 days. Naomi Campbell assaults a policeman and gets 200 hours' community service. Terrorists are found guilty in absentia and we pay for them to live in the UK. A Prime Minister has ultimate responsibility for over 100 deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and gets a job as a peacemaker in the Middle East.

Does nobody get proper punishment today? A parent gets a £60 fine because her child drops "pigeon" food on the pavement; teachers lose their job for clipping an obnoxious kid round the ear; a pensioner goes to jail because they don't pay their council tax.

Has this country gone mad, or just the people running it? The sooner we get punishments applicable to the offence and not the lawyer that you can afford to defend you; the sooner we will get proper criminals being locked up for the whole of their sentence and murderers will get their just rewards for killing innocent people.

One day, the real people of this country will
re-establish the precedent of society over the individual and the rule of law. The day can't come too soon.