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National Trust boss backs wind turbines

national trust
The National Trust’s director-general Dame Fiona Reynolds has given her personal approval to wind turbines describing them as ‘beautiful’.

Her comments, made to The Sunday Times, are in direct contrast to the view held by National Trust chairman Sir Simon Jenkins, who has previously argued against onshore wind on aesthetic grounds.

Dame Reynolds compared the proliferation of turbines, and the relatively recent introduction of the technology to the landscape, to the spread of the railways in the 19th century and the opposition which greeted them without the benefit of hindsight.

“Personally, I think a wind turbine in the right place is a rather beautiful thing. I think they can look graceful, and this goes back to thinking in past centuries,” she said. 

“If you think back to what the railways looked like to the 19th century mind, or indeed the 18th century when the canals were coming through, I think we have to have our minds open to how the wind turbine will appear to us in 100 years.”

She added: “Wind turbines in the right place are fine. We object to wind turbines where they are a blot on our historic landscape.

“Simon has a fundamental, personal, aesthetic objection to wind turbines.”

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