THE deadline is tomorrow (Friday) to join Isle of Man Newspapers’ campaign to protect the island’s lifeline ferry routes from over-intensive wind farm development in the Irish Sea.
Since we launched our ‘Don’t cut us off’ campaign in December, we have received 1,190 petition forms, signed by more than 1,500 people.
Our campaign received a welcome boost this week from Shoprite. They sent in more than 100 signed petition forms.
We will then present them to developer Celtic Array – a joint venture between Centrica and Dong Energy – to show the strength of feeling on the issue.
We hope they will then abandon their plans for the North East wind farm development, which we believe would seriously jeopardise the island’s lifeline to the outside world.
The Manx government, the Steam Packet, the Chamber of Commerce and TravelWatch Isle of Man have expressed concerns the cumulative effect of the current and proposed wind farms, together with the Morecambe Bay gas field platforms, will present a very real threat to lifeline services and the Manx economy.
Concerns include a greater likelihood of cancelled/delayed sailings, particularly in bad weather, and increased journey times and costs.
{http://bit.ly/T6LWB8|Get involved by downloading and filling in the petition form - click here.}