YOUR St Owens Cross correspondent is quite right that I supported and voted for an anaerobic digester in their village (Grants are propping up digesters, Letters, February 19).
I read all the letters of objection and supporting information and then made a balanced decision.
I am aware of the contribution these digesters make to the environment but I am also aware of the many issues surrounding them.
They are only ‘green’ when the majority of the fuel for them is waste products. I believe the St Owens Cross plant is fed largely from vegetable waste from neighbouring Gamber Growers and the potato farm just one-and-a-half miles down the road, thus making this plant an asset to the area rather than a blight.
My argument is that when permission is granted and then crops are grown miles away and use up vast amounts of energy to get the crops back to the farm for feeding, then this cannot be called ‘green’.
I believe that crops should largely be grown for food and not for feeding digesters, and if crops are grown for digesters then it should be within a very small radius of the premises.
I was happy to vote for this particular digester because it was only the second or third in the county. No county can support multiple numbers of these things but we can support a few.
In Germany there are now many left unused as they are not as ‘green’ as they thought. It’s a funny old world isn’t it?
CLLR DAVE GREENOW Hagley Ward Dinedor
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