Taking the wind out of MEP's sails
He also suggests that both ProWA and Leicester Friends of the Earth are receiving funding from Nuon, the company wishing to build a wind farm at Swinford, and he talks of local activists who oppose the wind farm being up against a "well-funded campaign backed by vested interests".
In answer to the question about how much funding ProWA is getting from Friends of the Earth, the answer is none. Support from Friends of the Earth has taken the form of campaigning and a number of local members of Friends of the Earth having also become active members of ProWA.
As to Mr Helmer's suggestion that the pro-wind farm campaign is "well funded and backed by vested interests", more than 90 per cent of Friends of the Earth's income nationally comes from thousands of small individual donations. Our local group's income of a few hundred pounds a year comes entirely from local members (apart from a cheque for £250 that we received from national FoE last year, for being chosen as local group of the year) and the group is run entirely by committed volunteers
Quite reasonably Nuon approached us for our support. We quizzed them intensively about their environmental impact assessment, to satisfy ourselves that the project was one that we could support. Having been satisfied, we decided to back the proposals because we believe that wind power has an important role to play in meeting the UK's energy needs in a sustainable way and, although some of us would prefer not to have to rely on private companies to meet these needs, we accept that for the moment we have to.
Nuon offered us nothing and under no circumstances would we have accepted anything from them if they had.
Mr Helmer is being disingenuous when he falsely suggests that we receive funding from the EU, given that as an MEP he receives a generous salary from this source, along with money for staff and an office.
However, it was kind of Mr Helmer to plug to our website.
Malcolm Hunter, Leicester Friends of the Earth.
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