NRegan

Last updated 00:00, Friday, 16 November 2007

GIANT concrete windmills make Jill Perry’s spirits soar and her heart sing. She deplores the common view that windfarms are ugly monstrosities which, like giant triffids, are marching all over our beautiful Cumbrian countryside.

A blot on one of England’s finest landscapes? Nonsense. The way Jill sees it, windfarms are our planet’s best hope and, anyway, they are objects of great beauty.

“Windmills are elegant, graceful pieces of machinery which are a visible reflection of our climate,’’ says Jill who is energy and climate campaigner for West Cumbria Friends of the Earth.

She was bitterly disappointed when the plans to build England’s biggest windfarm at Whinash were thrown out in 2006.

“The windmills would have been an iconic vision; a beautiful image of hope for the future seen from the motorway by people using up fossil fuels in their cars," says Jill.

There are currently 12 windfarms in Cumbria and many more are proposed. Jill is busy campaigning for farms to be sited at Westnewton, Dearham and Tallentire; she is also hoping to overturn Allerdale’s decision to reject plans for a windfarm near the picturesque coastal village of Allonby.

Jill is the co-author of a Friends of the Earth turbine tourist guide for the Cumbria coastal railway line; she firmly believes the giant concrete structures around villages like Flimby are an attractive vision for many people, not just for paid-up eco-warriors.

Her great dream would be to see a windfarm or a hydro scheme for every village; a county where every town, village and hamlet was self-sufficient and green enough not to add to the carbon dioxide emissions which some scientists believe to be the enemy of the planet.

However, Jill’s love of windfarms is not universally shared. She claims that 80 per cent of people like windfarms and find them interesting; her fellow enthusiasts, however, rarely turn up in the dusty village halls when the subject is debated.

Residents of Cumbrian villages where the windfarms are planned tend to be in Jill’s opposition camp.

The result is that Jill wins either fierce admiration or total condemnation.

She says she has succeeded in growing a thicker skin.

“At public meetings, it seems that 99 per cent of people in the room are against me and my opponents are often vociferous, aggressive and personal in their attacks.

“I find it hard to be aggressive in return. It is extremely daunting to speak out against others. I find the courage to lay myself open to heated criticism because I believe so strongly in my cause and I won’t let anything or anyone stop me.

“I try to turn some of the personal comments made about me into a joke but I admit that it is hard, especially if my critic is someone who I have met.

“I believe that our planet will be wrecked in my children’s lifetime and that we only have a window of about 10 years in which to prevent a series of monumental environmental disasters.

“That certainty means that I am prepared to take any flak,” adds 51-year-old Jill.

In fact, the prospect of a world without electricity or motor cars holds no fears for Jill who was brought up on a farm in Loweswater by a father who practised environmental awareness before the term existed.

Jill says: “My dad believed in living in harmony with the earth; he had old-fashioned attitudes which have now won modern credibility. He refused to use any chemicals on the land and he used a horse for ploughing. The farm didn’t have a tractor until I was three and there was no electricity until I was seven and I know it would never be a problem for me to live without it.”

Motherhood turned Jill into an active member of Friends of the Earth; she says the birth of her children Susan, now 23, and Simon, 20, gave her the impetus to fight for the future.

She tries to practise what she preaches and her own home at Bullgill near Maryport is a testament to green living. Jill and her retired teacher husband John have installed a solar water heating system, low-energy lightbulbs, a condensing oil boiler, double glazing and loft insulation. “We also wear jumpers rather than turn up the heating,” she says.

The couple run a small 1.2 Skoda as their family car. Jill makes the four-mile journey to Maryport by bicycle. The household electricity is supplied by Good Energy – a firm which supplies 100 per cent renewable energy.

“I try to avoid flying whenever there is an alternative,” she says.

Luckily for Jill, she can always choose to enjoy a holiday close to home at Flimby. Her admiration for those beauteous concrete windmills gives her an alternative not possible for everyone.