UK - Battle stations over Trafalgar wind turbines plan

As Britain celebrates the bicentenary of the battle of Trafalgar today, a new battle is being fought by local people determined to stop the scene of Nelson's historic naval victory from being turned into the world's biggest maritime wind-power park. A group of wind-power companies, backed by local environmentalists, want to plant 500 giant wind turbines in the shallow, rocky seabed some three miles off the southern Spanish coast between Cape Trafalgar and the town of Conil de la Frontera. The turbines would stand 100 metres above the Atlantic as it stretches out towards the coast of Africa, clearly visible yesterday from the lighthouse perched atop Cape Trafalgar. "They say they'll be so far away that we won't notice them, but on a good day here we can see boats leaving port at Tangiers," Antonio Morillo, a local chemist who is leading protests against the wind farm plan, said yesterday. "We believe in conserving the landscape and our traditional fishing grounds."

Local people fear tourists who come to watch the sun setting into the Atlantic Ocean will be put off by the sight of dozens of turbines on the horizon. The wind power project has the provisional backing of provincial authorities in Cádiz, but they have postponed a final decision. The mayors of Barbate, Vejer and Conil, the three towns whose fishing fleets and tourist industries stand to suffer, have joined a protest movement that includes local fisherman's guilds and other groups. The local tuna industry gives work to some 5,000 local people, while many more are employed in coastal fishing. Environmentalists say the strong, constant breezes blowing into the Straits of Gibraltar are ideal for harnessing wind power. "A lot of nonsense is being talked to make people afraid," said José Luis García, energy spokesman for Greenpeace Spain.