A West peer yesterday hit out at the Government's plans to

create thousands of “monstrous” wind turbines across the

country, all well over twice the size of Nelson's Column.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon claimed the towering turbines would

be an ugly scar in both the countryside or in shallow waters

off the coast while being nowhere near sufficient to cater for

the nation's energy requirements.

The 82-year-old Independent Labour peer said: “It is not

widely realised that the Government's new proposals for the

installation of 5,000 wind turbines in Britain requires them to

be 400 ft high.”

This, said the former MP for Swindon, would more than double

the usual 150ft that most existing turbines reach.

At the same time, they would dwarf Nelson's Column which,

including the statue of Britain's greatest admiral, towers

169ft above Trafalgar Square.

Lord Stoddard went on: “These giant turbines are considered

by many to be 'clean power' but wind turbine enthusiasts seldom

take into account the hundreds of miles of roads that will have

to be built to create transport links to these machines.

“Then there are the electricity sub-stations and miles of

power lines and pylons that will be needed to connect these

monstrosities to the Grid.”

The Stoddart, who was Labour MP for Swindon's from 1970 to

1983, recently raised his objections to the wind turbine plan

in the House of Lords when he asked whether the Government had

had any discussions with the National Grid about its policy of

building thousands of wind turbines.

He told the House: “Is not the National Grid concerned about

the connection of these wind turbines and will it not require

additional conventional capacity to be built to cover the time

when the wind is not turning them?”

Responding for the Government, Baroness Vadera,

Under-Secretary at Department for Business and Enterprise, said

Lord Stoddart had made a valid point.

She said: “Wind generation is intermittent and therefore

needs – may I use a technical term? – base-load capacity, which

means we need to build for coal and gas to back up the

wind.

“That is why it is not the most effective source in terms of

energy security of supply, but it is very effective for climate

change.”

Yesterday Lord Stoddart said: “In other words, even the

Government admits that not only is wind power grossly

inefficient but we also need to build more coal and gas fired

power stations to support all these new turbines when there is

no wind.

“I hardly think that our grandchildren will thank us for

tearing up vast swathes of our most picturesque countryside to

install highly inefficient wind turbines that contribute a tiny

fraction of our energy needs.”

The row was sparked by the Government's commitment to create

more green energy over the coming years with the creation of

thousands of wind turbines, both in the countryside and

off-shore.

The Government has set itself ambitious targets of 15 per

cent of all energy coming from renewable sources by 2020. The

figure at present is around 1.5 per cent, so the plan requires

a huge increase in green energy plants.