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A story of a delightfully odd eco-battle in Devonshire
"There is an energy crisis on the horizon," warned Mike Hulme, peering out across the bottle-green Devonshire countryside. And there was. The future had arrived in Den Brook, tossing local opinion hither and thither with its big plans and recycled plastic clipboards and fashionably common-sense approach to the environment.
A company called Renewable Energy Systems (RES) had turned up with proposals for a wind farm. Here, they said, nine 120-metre high turbines would jugga-jug away to provide electricity for up to 13,000 homes. "Trouble is," chuckled farmer Martin Tucker, radish-faced behind the wheel of his combine harvester, "they all want the electric, but they don't want it in their back garden, do they?" They do not.
In the first of four episodes, filmed over six years, we followed a trio of locals – harassed RES project manager Rachel Ruffle, eco-conscious worrier Mike and the hugely amused Martin, whose deal with RES stands to make him a millionaire – as the to-do gathered momentum. What emerged was a delightfully odd slice of life, dusted with eccentricity and garnished with fists.
The inevitable "infuriated yokel" comic interludes felt slightly forced, but the scenery was sublime, the brouhaha suitably microcosmic and the editing sharp enough to carve every last chunk of drama from what is, we were warned repeatedly, "an epic battle". After a fraught meeting in which West Devon Borough Council voted to turn down RES's proposals, we left Rachel, Mike and Martin as we found them: unbowed, determined, each convinced episode two would buffet them closer to justice.
Rachel: "They're not taking responsibility for their own power."
Mike: "I'm the only one who's focused on the noise issue."
Martin: "Heh-heh!"
To be continued, then. Very possibly for ever.
