I READ John Hopkins' letter (June 6) 'Way of assisting village schools' with interest.

I agree with his desire to see our excellent village schools prosper and a revival of village shops and pubs. We in Milton Abbot have lost both our wonderful little village shop and our Post Office, though we still retain the Edgecumbe Arms, which provides an excellent local amenity.

Milton Abbot Village Hall Committee, (another fantastic local venue) of which I am chairman, has arranged for the Post Office to open there twice a week.

In theory, three viable businesses could support three families, with their 2.4 children, say six or seven kiddies for the local school. Perfect!

However, I have to put on my other two hats and correct Mr Hopkins' misapprehension over recent planning developments.

There is no current wind farm development planned at Lamerton, but there is a scoping plan for a solar array of some 14ha at Venn Farm. There is great concern over this in the village, and they have formed a committee, LASA, to oppose it. Not a NIMBY amongst them I assure you. I am chairman of this committee.

Further, a solar array has been approved after appeal at Kelly of some 8ha, right next to Grade 1 and II Listed buildings and an AONB.

A solar array has been proposed at Bradstone of some 47 acres right next to the Tamar Valley AONB and other listed buildings. A committee has been formed to oppose this too, called MABRAKE, and I am also a member.

These current developments will take out some 92 acres of Grade 3 arable land in West Devon. And this is only the beginning!

One can understand why — currently the income from farmland in our district is around £92 per acre. A solar array yields £1,000 per acre rent. No contest. This is virtually all subsidy and is coming out of our pockets via higher electricity bills.

A solar array at Lamerton will supply no local jobs. Once it is built, it will employ a man in a van to pop over from Exeter to maintain them occasionally. What help will that give the local school?

So far the wind industry (possibly the biggest scam since the South Sea Bubble) has created 12,000 jobs throughout the UK, each job subsidised by you and me to between £100,000 and £1.3-million. The poor pay higher electricity bills so that the rich can pocket even fatter subsidies.

Just think, the salaries from four or five wind farm-subsidised jobs could finance a school the size of Tavistock College for one year! Even one would keep our village Post Office and shop open indefinitely.

Interestingly, up-country wind and solar 'farmers' are now realising that their heirs are liable to full Inheritance Tax on their once 'free' IHT farming liability as they are now rated as an industrialised business.

Chickens home to roost, eh?

Chris Burchell

Chairman

LASA

Lamerton Against Solar Array