Letter to the Editor

     Are your many readers aware of the 26 stupendously tall 825 ft wind turbines proposed at Bryn village between Maesteg and the Afan Valley ?  They will be ,by far, the biggest wind turbines in the world. The Eiffel Tower is only 1060 feet high !

Their diameters will be bigger than Blackpool Tower , so they will be visible from Exmoor, which is only 25 miles from Port Talbot.

   The Welsh Government has recently published maps purporting to show areas of Wales  at danger from sea level rises  and heavy rainfall ,all due to global warming.

I believe Natural Resources Wales [NRW] contributed to the maps.

  As a former Ordnance Survey Cartographic Surveyor  who mapped parts of Wales over fifty years ago, I feel that a sea-level rise in the Atlantic of over a metre is exaggerative scare-mongering.

     If NRW and the Welsh Government also believe that heavy rain is going to cause flash-flooding to that extent, how on Earth can they then allow large windfarms on our hills, when they entail  clearing absorbent moorland and forestry to create vast areas of hard-standings for roads  and concrete turbine bases etc, causing rapid run-off of rainwater?

  In fact, if they believe their own maps, how can they now support the Bryn wind-farm , which will clearly cause severe flash-floods in both the Afan and Llynfi valleys  ?  The worst flooding will occur around the little river called Ffrwd Wyllt. Its name means “Wild Brook” in English, proving it is prone to flash-flooding. It flows down  from Mynydd Margam  through Goytre and Penycae into the middle of Port Talbot steel-works.  It looks to be culverted under the M4. Will the culvert be adequate ?  Bryn wind farm will encompass its whole catchment area.

Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing in  Welsh Government?