AME News Update January 2026

Hi everyone,

Firstly, as this is our first update from AME in 2026, we wish you all a happy, and turbine free, new year.

Since setting AME up a mere four months ago we have achieved so much in short space of time. We’ve set up a website and Facebook page. We prepared and hand distributed over 5000 leaflets to homes in areas affected by the wind farm proposals, we’ve had a stall at the Penpont Christmas Fair raising awareness of our campaign coupled with a raffle to help fund the leaflets and publicity banners. The raffle coupled with generous donations have ensured we enter the new year with no debt, and indeed a small surplus. We’ve successfully coordinated with other groups to make sure we stay informed and engaged with the planning processes, making sure the voices of local people are heard.

We have some important news regarding the Interim Steering group. Our coordinator, Paul Swann, has done a sterling job in getting AME set up and running, his energy, determination, enthusiasm, knowledge and vision have been an inspiration. However owing to personal reasons, Paul has decided to move from the coordinator role to that of a more informal friend/consultant to AME as he seeks to balance workload, priorities and pressure. We fully support Paul in this move and wish him well. We will of course seek to support him with his new focus, and keep him fully aware of AME’s progress and initiatives and also endeavour to keep up with his astonishing ability to keep on top of news and developments that have bearing on our campaign.

You will appreciate this has required us to re-organise the roles and responsibilities of the Steering Group and to ask for help in terms of skills, personnel and availability. We are very grateful to Jane, a local person, who has offered to stand in temporarily as a secretary for AME which will be a huge help. If you have any skills or time available to help or even join the steering group we would be delighted to hear from you too. In particular we could really do with some help managing and keeping the website and Facebook page updated, monitored and kept current.

We have an exciting set of initiatives under way, which will be publicised more fully in future updates, on the web and on the Facebook Page.

But just to give you advance notice, here is a brief summary of some of our current initiatives:

John, a local nature enthusiast and volunteer is spearheading a project to encourage wildlife monitoring in our district, particularly in the areas where the wind turbines are being proposed and where the available data is out of date. We are organising an event to be held at Penpont on the 4th March (which will be advertised soon). Lorna Brazell, trustee of the Cambrian Mountain Society, will be giving a talk entitled ‘The invisible costs of renewable power: bringing nature resilience into the calculation’. We are also hoping to work with our local Community Council to perform a household survey to help us judge the views and feelings of the local community. In addition we will be participating in the demonstration at the Senedd on 11th February – please do support that with us.

On top of all this we are working with a two talented and well known people, an artist and a photographer, who have great vision and ideas for celebrating and sharing our shared passion for this beautiful part of Wales which we are seeking to protect.

That’s it for now, but do please get in touch if you can help us in any way at all or if you would like further information.

Kind regards,

Mark Collins
AME Spokesperson