Advertising Watchdog Comes Down on Anti-Wind-Farm Critics

The UK Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has upheld three complaints leveled against campaigners opposed to a Yorkshire wind farm, forcing the withdrawal of adverts criticising the project.

“The ad must not appear again in its current form,” said the ASA in their findings. “We told Bridwindfarm not to make claims unless they could be substantiated with robust evidence.”

The ads were featured in the Bridlington Free Press opposing a wind farm application at Fraisthorpe. Part of the advert featured in the circular claimed the following;

“Did you know an application has been submitted to erect 9 wind turbines at Fraisthorpe, which will dominate Bridlington Bay for decades to come? The natural beauty of the coastline will be ruined forever if planning permission is granted. The turbines will be 427 feet tall, which is 5 times higher than Flamborough Lighthouse and will dwarf the existing ones at Lissett.”

TCI Renewables, the developer of the proposed 27-MW Fraisthorpe wind farm, challenged whether:

the images in ads (a) and (b) accurately represented the visual effects of the proposed wind farm;
the claims about the height of the turbines in ads (a) and (b) could be substantiated; and
the claim “The natural beauty of the coastline will be ruined forever if planning permission is granted” in ad (a) was misleading.

The ASA responded by saying that the advertising was both misleading and that the claims they made could not be substantiated with any proof.

Fraisthorpe

This is a great result, not for the financial benefit of TCI, but rather in combating the negative sentiments so often and willfully spread by anti-wind-farm campaigners. My personal pet-peeve is the regular claims that wind turbines will affect “the natural beauty of the coastline,” given that, in my opinion, they barely intrude at all and, when they do, there is a certain knowledge displayed in their existence that is very natural; we’re generating renewable natural energy, after all.

Image Source: SandMonster on Flickr

Joshua S Hill (497 Posts)

I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, a liberal left-winger, and believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I work as Associate Editor for the Important Media Network and write for CleanTechnica and Planetsave. I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), Amazing Stories, the Stabley Times and Medium. I love words with a passion, both creating them and reading them.

Luke

I’m sick of NIMBY’s bitching.
- Ross
  
  They often seem to also be AGW deniers.
  - Bob_Wallace
    
    Part of the tinfoil hat cluster.
    
    There’s a recent piece of research pulling all this together. A small group of individuals driven by extreme beliefs and not easily swayed by facts….
    - Ross
      
      That sounds like the set-up to a punch line.
      
      Fill in the blank with your least favourite group of fact deniers.
  - http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
    
    Unwilling to see that things change… and that some things need to change.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Srsly
Dave2020

Sorry for reposting this, but it is VERY relevant. If the turbines were five miles off the coast, they would be invisible and it would be a non-issue, unless you’re Donald Trump.

There are MANY occasions when the ASA should step in and challenge an industry’s advertising, but they don’t. I recall an advert for Land Rover’s Discovery 3 that was fantasy lies from beginning to end, and proven to be so by independent road tests, but they weren’t told to pull the ad’.

“Ya’all are hung up” Don’t include me Kalendjay. You are right – for both CF and LCOE, by FAR the most important factor is location, location, location. But even then, the wind is still VARIABLE!!!

Here’s another reason why I say that reactionary enthusiasts for orthodox wind are wrong to erect their barriers to real progress. To be perfectly candid, you guys are a pain in the butt! We need to have energy storage and we need it NOW!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-19051349

Iolo ap Dafydd – BBC Wales environment correspondent, writes:-

“It is contentious because of the countryside – there’s a strong feeling it will mean an industrialisation of this area.

On the other hand, we’ve got the UK government and the Welsh government saying we need to have more renewable clean energy.

That means, at the moment, onshore wind farms.”

When you live on a small island these issues matter. Local environmentalists don’t give a toss about the LCOE of the wind turbines. Can you blame them?

Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1j7w4)