A HUGE thank you to our readers for a fantastic response to our campaign to protect the island’s lifeline ferry routes from over-intensive wind farm development in the Irish Sea!
Isle of Man Newspapers’ ‘Don’t cut us off campaign’ received a total of 1,253 petition forms.
They were signed by some 1,616 people.
Isle of Man Newspapers editor Richard Butt said: ‘We’ve been staggered by the response to our campaign. It clearly illustrates the level of concern that there is in the Isle of Man over the possibility of over-intensive wind farm development in the Irish Sea. It could have a major impact on our lifeline ferry routes.’
He added: ‘Although we are sending off all the petition forms to Celtic Array this week, please continue sending in your petition forms to us.
‘The more pressure we can put on Celtic Array the more they, and other potential developers, will realise this is a scenario we cannot and will not tolerate!’
We contacted developer Celtic Array – a joint venture between Centrica and Dong Energy – to update them on our campaign.
Laura Jeffs, head of development at Centrica Energy, said: ‘I appreciate the time that people have taken to respond to this campaign and the team working on the wind farm proposals will consider this carefully.’
We launched our ‘Don’t cut us off’ campaign in December in the hope they will then abandon their plans for the North East wind farm development.
A number of local businesses showed their support, including Shoprite, which sent in more than 100 petition forms.
The Manx government, the Steam Packet, the Chamber of Commerce and TravelWatch Isle of Man all 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.
In the House of Commons, Transport Secretary Stephen Hammond was asked by Morecambe MP David Morris what steps he would take to prevent the building of offshore wind farms in the waters and shipping lanes between the Isle of Man and Heysham. Mr Hammond said Celtic Array had yet to submit a planning application for that zone.
