Please act to help stop a major act of vandalism to the British Coastline. Visit the Slay the Array site by 31^st of August to find out how to help.

I have just returned from a holiday in North Devon, including a day trip to Lundy Island. Here I learnt about a mega wind farm proposed for the Bristol Channel by energy giant RWE. This is an area of outstanding coastal beauty, attracting millions of tourists annually to the area.

Proposed are 188 to 278 turbines, of either 180 or 220 metres (590 or 722 feet) in height, located as near as 13km (8 miles) from Lundy and 14km (9 miles) from the North Devon Coast.

Compare this with the second highest point on Lundy. The small building in the photograph is Tibbetts, 128 metres (420 feet) above sea level.

Or compare in height to some London skyscrapers.

Tower 42 (formerly the Natwest Tower) is 183m

The Gherkin (30 St Mary’s Axe) is 180m

One Canada Square, Canary Wharf is 235m

In Manchester, the tallest building is the Beetham Tower at just 169m tall, whilst the older Blackpool Tower, that dominates the resort’s skyline, is a mere 158 metres.

Another comparison is to the Skegness wind farm. Here there are just 57 134 metre-high turbines located 5km from shore. It has blighted the outlook from the beach level at Skegness. This picture I took at Easter of this year, on a very grey day. Better pictures are available here. The pictures do not fully recreate the visual impact, as the eye is drawn to the turning blades – or in the case of Skegness the difference between those blades that were turning, and the large number which were not.

Yet Skegness is a declining resort, not noted for its scenery. It does not have high cliffs from which to look out at a distant coastline. There is no equivalent of Butter Hill at Countisbury or the cliff tops of Lundy where you can survey the coastline of Wales. Should this Atlantic Bristol Channel Array go ahead, the eye will be drawn instead to the turning mega turbines, as the scenery.