Letters / Calculator Broken?
However many times SuS repeat the numbers of people for or against the Viking wind farm, it will not increase their significance.
Firstly, the planning system is not a popularity pole or beauty contest, it is an adversarial procedure under which a project is proposed, made public, and objections invited. The proposer is then given the opportunity to reply to the objections.
As there is no provision in the system to encourage expressions of support its remarkable that so many people did.
Secondly, objectors are not necessarily against the project, they may only be against an aspect of the project while supporting it in principle.
For example, I submitted objections to detailed aspects of the applications while supporting the wind farm generally, which means that moving my vote from “objectors” to “supporters” has the effect of reducing the SuS total by two.
Lastly, the significance of SuS membership should be questioned as I don’t believe that, given time to reflect on the issues, a few members will have moved on but failed to inform their leaders.
A more realistic total would be the number of people making donations to the SuS fighting fund – but I am sure this will be difficult to establish.
Richard Gibson
Lerwick
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