UKC

Please help stop the potential ruination of the Afon Conwy at Fairy Glen in Snowdonia by an RWE hydro-electric power plant. Details and petition-to-be-signed at - http://snowdonia-society.org.uk/conwy-falls-petition/

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

Signed, and have a bump.

In reply to Mark Kemball:

Ditto.

In reply to Dave Williams:

'ave another

Here's a link to what RWE are proposing:

http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/en/2256320/rwe-innogy/sites/hydroelectric-power-...

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

I am sympathetic but could you explain how the proposal would ruin the Fairy Glen? The planning application talks about tunnels, buried pipelines etc but without any details. Producing hydroelectric power from a river seems like a good thing in principle compared to producing it from a coal-fired power station. Are you talking about the effect on the environment, fish, canoeing, bouldering or what?

In reply to Pekkie:

More info here, but particularly worried about impact on rare plants I think: http://snowdonia-society.org.uk/project/conwy-falls-hydro/

Difficult to work out how significant the impact would be without more detailed plans etc.

In reply to Pekkie:

Should point out I'm not a local, my Dad's a civil engineer, I usually support renewable energy, but I love Snowdonia, used to visit several times a year, and have always been passionate about wildlife, so I am torn and really wish I could understand more about the impact than I think is possible!

In reply to mountainbagger:

The main threat to fairy Glen is reducing the water flow.

In reply to mountainbagger:

Without detailed knowledge of either the scheme or the location, I would point out
that the any rare plants that depend on a specific local environment are certain to be under threat from climate change.

In reply to Pekkie:

Felling a significant number of the surrounding ancient oak trees that currently have tree preservation orders on them. Building permanent access roads through a SSSI. Stemming the flow of water over the Conwy Falls. Basically shagging a beauty spot in the name of renewable energy... oh and lining a few pockets.

In reply to carrbridge:

I live next to a SSSI. It's got all sorts of roads, bridges and structures on it. If you look pretty much anywhere in the UK you'll find something that's either rareish or ancient.

I can't comment on the current proposal, it may well be despoiling the area unnecessarily, but anything involving hydro will affect streams and hilly places, windfarms will be an eyesore covering thousands of hectares, tidal barrages will screw up the estuary. Unless we adopt the BANANA principle (Built Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) then something special will be ruined in the process. They can't just move the scheme out of sight onto a council estate somewhere.

In reply to Ridge:

That's quite a down beat view of things you have there. Not all beautiful places have to be exploited in the quest for renewable energy. Some of them need to be protected for future generations and the Fairy Glen is one of them. It hasn't got "all sorts of roads, bridges and structures on it" like the SSSI near you. It's a stunningly beautiful, fast-flowing waterway situated in ancient oak woodland (the Woodland trust have joined the fight to save it http://bit.ly/1daZs4G).

The Fairy Glen lies within the Snowdonia National Park, so should be protected by the National Park Authority. Both the waterway and the trees have additional protected status (SSSI & TPO's). However the developers have managed to persuade the planning authority that this protection should be ignored for the sake of the hydro scheme. It stinks. As Ed Douglas has succinctly put it, this is turning into 'a battle for Snowdonia's credibility as a National Park'. Go on, have a rethink, and consider signing the petition http://snowdonia-society.org.uk/conwy-falls-petition/

One other thing. I don't understand your comment about the council estate. My mam lives in a council house. So do a lot of my family, on the same estate. It's a nice place with a strong sense of community. So why would the developers want to move their schemes to a places like this?

In reply to Chris_Mellor:
I'm with the others on this one.

I'm not keen on signing petitions willy nilly given that society needs power and renewable energy is a way forward. Wherever hydo electric schemes are created some environmental damage will occur to somewhere. "Progress" if it can be called that is a trade off.

You've asked for support with the petition, I'm prepared to consider it but before doing so could I ask you as the OP to state your case and give your reasons why you think people should support you?

How severe will this "ruination" of Fairy Glen be? I don't know it, but why is Fairy Glen so special compared with the damage which might occur if the scheme was moved elsewhere? The details given on your link are very sparce. How big an area is Fairy Glen? It's difficult to see the size of the affected Glen from the photo and why it's any different from the hundreds if not thousands of water falls and cascades in the Welsh Mountains.

In reply to carrbridge:
The council estate comment got me riled as well....

In reply to alan moore:


As a former council estate lad myself there was no slur intended. Just pointing out that areas that middle class society look down on aren't suitable for hiding away hydro schemes. If the UK want to invest in hydro in a meaningful way the only suitable areas will tend to be in beautiful upland areas.

In reply to carrbridge:


Every time there is one of these threads opposing a renewable energy scheme this phrase gets trotted out. Failure to tackle climate change is the opposite of preserving anything - rather a guarantee that whatever it is won't be preserved at all! Not to mention the fact that the existence any "future generations" also depends on this issue being dealt with.

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

Interesting related development across the Atlantic:

http://www.hetchhetchy.org/initial_court_ruling_in_our_favor

(Hetch hetchy is another valley system in the Yosemite area, and was damned over a great furore with similar claims of corruption. This court ruling could mean that a dam lower downstream will need to be built and this one partially demolished).

The benefits of as natural as possible a National Park are hard to quantify - and perhaps shouldn't be at all. To lower the value of a National Park for a quick buck is likely to be short-sighted and lead to only more plundering of other National Parks, ultimately causing a great loss for the future.

In reply to Removed UserArdverikie2:


That is a fair point regarding global warming rendering moot any saving of land, but your argument implicitly assumes that we only have two options - we can choose to keep the national park, only to lose it to global warming, or plunder it and prevent global warming - which is not the case. There are countless other places (which are not national parks) to source energy, and more than likely this one was chosen solely on a cost/profit basis - which cannot be applied to things that simply have an immaterial value, e.g. the emotional connection with nature a national park provides.

In reply to Chris_Mellor:

Might as well go ahead. I reckon humanity is ( in the not so distant future) doomed and anything that speeds our demise is to be welcomed.

In reply to Trangia:

Fairy Glen is one of the best hard kayaking runs in the UK and it's often got enough water in to paddle when other hard runs (or indeed any decent rivers) are empty. From a kayaking perspective this is a major issue and one of the great testing grounds of UK whitewater paddlers would be available quite a lot less days per year.

An equivalent scenario in climbing would be produced by bird banning (or putting up scaffold) across Malham Cove for half of the year. This is without considering the environmental effect.

In reply to philipivan:

Thanks for that. I'll sign.

As I posted earlier it would have been helpful if the OP had given more details for those that don't know Fairy Glen.

In reply to SenzuBean:


Sadly generating our current energy requirements from renewables, if we have to do so within the country which, unfortunately ,we do if the govt insists on refusing to invest, is far from easy. Hydroelectric and onshore wind require hills. Wave and tidal requires coastline etc. It would be great if sufficient energy could be generated on brownfield industrial sites but they're simply in the wrong place.

In reply to philipivan:

That's without going into the paltry amount of power which would be generated!