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Fishermen protest against off-shore wind farm plan
By Alison Purdy,
PA News
The Scotsman
28th May 2004
Fishermen today staged a protest at the site of a proposed off-shore wind farm, which they claim will damage North Sea fishing grounds.
A flotilla of around 20 boats carrying men from Boston, in Lincolnshire and King’s Lynn, Wells and Brancaster in Norfolk took to The Wash in protest at plans to build a 100 turbine wind farm in the North Sea waters.
The fishermen claim their earnings could be slashed by 20% due to the loss of fishing grounds given over to the turbines.
Despite the promise of compensation they have not yet received any money.
John Lake, 63, from King’s Lynn, who has been in the fishing industry for 30 years, said their calls for research into the effects the turbines will have on the fishing grounds have been ignored.
“As part of their licence to build the wind farm they were supposed to do a trawl of the sea bed before construction began to see what was there and a trawl at the end to make sure they had left nothing behind but that has not been done.
“They have paid no regard to the fishermen whatsoever and have broken the terms of their licence,” he said.
Mr Lake, who runs Lake Shellfish Ltd with his son Neil, said between 400-500 fishermen would be affected.
He said the protests would continue until conditions of the licence had been complied with and the fishermen had received their compensation.
“We want to let them know that we mean business,” he said.
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