Christopher Booker's notebook
(Filed: 19/02/2006)

If you say no to turbines, you're 'prejudiced'

A storm has blown up in Wales over an order issued to a Powys county councillor who opposes the council's pro-wind turbine policy. He he is not allowed to attend any debate on the issue - although nothing is more contentious locally than the Welsh Assembly's wish to see large areas of upland Wales covered with hundreds of giant turbines, and its identification of the hills of Powys as preferred sites.

A letter to Councillor Bob Mills from Jeremy Patterson, Powys's "monitoring officer" (and "executive director for organisation and governance"), notes that he has written a letter to the local paper critical of windpower as being not "cost effective". Furthermore, writes this official, "I am also advised that you expressed very strong views at a meeting here in County Hall on 26 January". Mr Patterson informs Mr Mills that, because he has a "pre-determined position" on this issue, he cannot be allowed to speak or vote on it, and "must leave the Chamber" whenever it is discussed.

Dan Munford, a local businessman whose No-Turbine-Petition campaign is winning support all over Wales, points out that if holding "an unequivocal view on wind power" is an offence, then Powys council and many of its councillors are just guilty as Councillor Mills, because they have made no secret of their support for the Assembly's policy.

This episode involving Powys's "monitoring officer", charged with enforcing John Prescott's new Code of Conduct on councillors, neatly brings together two of the more alarming developments in contemporary national life. One is the way in which the Government's promotion of wind turbines is undermining local democracy. A proposal for 26 giant turbines on Romney Marsh in Kent was violently opposed by two county, two district, and 13 parish councils, and every environmental group in sight. An inspector appointed by the Department for Trade and Industry swept all their objections aside, and the scheme is to go ahead.

Equally undemocratic is the revolution in local government brought about by the rules from Mr Prescott which allow "monitoring officers" to exclude any councillor from debates in which they are deemed to have a "prejudicial interest". This includes any councillor who has previously expressed any view on the issue, or even who can be shown to have discussed it with members of the public before it comes up for debate.

In the village of Brent Knoll in Somerset recently, five out of eight parish councillors were told they were not to discuss a proposal to erect five wind turbines overlooking the village. The turbines would be visible from their homes, which gave them a "prejudicial interest". (After a furore, this advice was withdrawn.)

Mr Prescott's revolution is thus reducing local government to farce, on many issues as well as turbines - and I shall return to the subject next week. Most disturbing of all, as Mr Munford points out, is how councillors seem only to be disqualified for "prejudice" when their views run contrary to those of their council's ruling group, or of the Government itself.