Scarcely a week goes by when I am not asked by a local campaign group to publicise their fight against some scheme to build one of those increasingly hated wind farms. So many developers are now piling in on the subsidy bonanza that, according to a survey by the Western Morning News, in Cornwall and Devon alone no fewer than 600 such schemes are now being discussed or going through the planning process.
A ploy often used by developers to buy off opposition to their proposals is to offer cash to fund local community projects. But few campaign groups are aware just how derisory the sums often are, compared with the gains the developers stand to make.