AS another Cumbrian wind farm inquiry looms next week over plans for nine turbines, each 102 metres high, near Berrier, I can’t help thinking that the “green” message would have got itself across to locals more effectively had developers not been so hard-nosed and arrogant.

If there’s one thing we don’t like in rural communities round here it’s being bullied and made to feel darned near criminal because we don’t fall submissively and unquestioning for the eco arguments every time.

Even hardened campaigners against the relentless march of the turbines would probably agree that, in the coming years, we have got to find more of our energy from renewable sources. But if the price to pay is having places like the Lake District virtually ringed by giant turbines then the cost is too great.

Locals raise their hackles when they suspect that the degree of benefit to their communities isn’t going to be significant and many large projects have a profit motive behind them. There are also serious doubts about the efficiency of the turbines which don’t operate when there’s no wind and can’t operate when there is too much.

Furthermore, developers have not exactly covered themselves in glory in the planning process, and a prime example was the Whinash inquiry in 2005 where the would-be developers of a major scheme close to the M6 corridor through the Howgills and Tebay fells hired an aggressive pinstripe suited barrister whose harsh cross-examination of local opponents backfired big time.

The fact is the arrogance of certain developers and the crass comments of ministers like Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Climate Change, have been counterproductive to a sensible debate about future energy needs.

I’ve met Mr. Miliband and he seems a perfectly decent fellow. But what on earth prompted him to make the insulting assertion that opposition to wind farms is “socially unacceptable”?

If locals oppose schemes they are accused of nimbyism. The reality is they won’t be harassed and bullied into accepting large projects that are bound to have an impact on their communities and, in Cumbria’s case, damage tourism.

Turbines or Tearooms? That was the title of a program on Radio 4 this week which examined the issue of reconciling beautiful landscapes with future energy requirements. The Government has set a target of achieving a third of our energy requirements from renewables by 2020. Yet when many schemes come forward they are met with local hostility and delays.

If we are to embrace the “green revolution” then it’s no good forcing massive unwanted schemes on small communities. Encouragement, not force, is the only way forward. We don’t want huge areas on the fringes of the national park sacrificed for an eco mantra and to try and meet unrealistic targets.

The worst the developers can do is to patronise locals saying that, because they don’t swallow the green message, they are afraid of change.

Smaller schemes with local benefit and local pride are the only way to genuinely convince people they are part of the battle against climate change. And when the big boys come along and try to impose their developments in our backyards, we must let them know in no uncertain terms that we will not be trodden underfoot without the sort of fight the good folk of Whinash put up successfully four years ago.

FUELLING DISCONTENT

AS usual, this week’s rise in fuel prices, the third increase in duty in nine months, will have greatest impact on those who live and work in rural counties like Cumbria.

It’s easy money for the Government. And it’s a success for those green fanatics who want to drive vehicles off the roads without a care for the consequences, such as the impact on the quality of life in isolated communities and the many small businesses that are finding it ever tougher to survive in a recession.

Unlike the politicians, the rest of us have to pay to fill up our cars and vans at the pumps. We can’t bung it down on our expenses like moaning MPs who, even when they get caught with their trousers down, still whinge that all these extras are their right.

Fuel protests which blocked the M6 nearly a decade ago when fuel prices went up were counterproductive. All they did was damage locals trying to get to work and frustrate the already innocent victims of the price hike.

But it always seems the motorist has to suffer, particularly those who have no alternative. This country’s transport policy seems to involve nothing more subtle than draining the pockets of the pariah motorist.

This latest fuel rise hardly fits in with the Government’s statements about doing everything to help business during the recession. It’s taxation that pleases the green lobby and punishes those who have to use their own transport because there aren’t viable alternatives. The local painter and decorator and jobbing builder can hardly hop on a bus to get to the next job.

Ministers are always less ready to target their own waste than they are to grab money off those who can often least afford it, but then again the expenses scandal showed that few of them live in the real world anyway.

PIE-EYED CHAIRMAN

ACCORDING to the Northern League’s ubiquitous football- loving chairman, Mike Amos, I missed a culinary classic the other night when I paid my first visit to Penrith’s new Frenchfield ground.

Amos, no stranger to a pie and a pint, has been studying a book by Tom Dickinson, who set himself the task of eating a pie at every Football League ground in order to produce a growlers’ handbook.

However, Amos reckons nothing holds a candle to Penrith’s pies, the best thing to have travelled from their old Southend Road haunts. “Their pies remain the best in football,” he says, without equivocation. As something of a football ground trencherman myself, a return visit to Frenchfield is on the itinerary, with a Penrith pie a must eat.

As for the new ground it all seems very fresh and pleasant, but I reserve judgement until the wind comes sweeping down the Eden Valley in the winter months. One thing for sure, someone’s going to be kept busy retrieving the ball which is booted over the surrounding fence with amazing regularity. Perhaps the ball boys are paid in pies!

ALL CLEAR NOW

THEY are hot on yoga up on the East Fellside, love being crafty at Appleby and go big on belly dancing in Shap.

I am always fascinated when Your Cumbria, the annual adult education magazine published by the county council, drops on the mat. The guide to courses is testament to the range of learning and skills that adult Cumbrians are willing to try — everything from dry stone walling to computing.

But the class that caught my eye was “Navigation for Women” at Penrith’s Ullswater Community College. Was it some sexist suggestion that ladies aren’t too good at map reading in the car. Help with parking problems at the supermarket maybe?

Then I looked at the heading “Fitness and Outdoor Education” and realised this was navigation on the fells. Unlike Scafell Pike in mist, all became clear to me.