Which is why I want to know if those representations against the windfarm were from local people. As mentionned above, if so, then this is a gross trampling over of local opinions.
There has been a similar controversy in a small village in the Jura mountains recently, the SIG (Geneva's state controlled energy company) wanted to install a windfarm. The locals called a local referendum, voted no and plans were shelved. Do notice direct democracy is part of the political culture in Switzerland and votes are binding legally. The SIG are in tractations with other communes of the area now.
Thats the type of thing I would like to see in the UK and it should side step the professional objectors, look what happened with Dale farm where essentially what was a local planning dispute made national and international news.
The cynic in me still says a well run campaign will still win out though as getting people to vote about anything is really hard to do, I remember having to drag my son to vote in the last elections, I managed not to go down the route of people have died to give you this right, and said unless you vote u can't bitch about anything a government does, gave the example of a future government taxing x box users at a rate of 90 percent. He reluctantly conceded the point and with much sighing and rolling of eyeballs he went with me to vote
Participation in referendums is generally below the 50% mark, sometimes more when it is a really touchy subject (EU, drug prevention policies, army, etc, etc). A damning indictement that even given as many rights as possible, way too many people simply can not be bothered to participate (they'll moan a lot though...). Which leaves the door open to those with evangelical zeal to push through their ideas.
Until we have the sort of legally binding public decision-making described by Moonlight Shadow, I remain extremely sceptical about the effectiveness of so-called 'consultation' exercises. As the subtitle of this thread says, they are usually just a sham.
