They all have their different reasons, but their responses, including some officially submitted to the statutory consultation organised by Calderdale Energy Park, are clear in their opposition to the proposals.

Calderdale Energy Park plans to put 34 giant wind turbines on Walshaw Moor, which is located between Hebden Bridge and Haworth, the village associated with the Bronte sisters. [...]

Keighley and Ilkley Conservative MP Robbie Moore has long opposed the proposals and has lodged a ten-page document with the consultation outlining his concerns.

“To make it clear, I’m not against renewable energy and understand the important role it plays in our energy mix.

“But I cannot simply stand by to see the construction of wind turbines being installed and constructed on protected peatland and on world-renowned heritage landscapes such as Walshaw Moor, which is the beating heart of Bronte country.

“This scheme will have lasting effects on our community, our landscape and environment.

“On paper, it sounds like a triumph for renewable energy, but in reality, it is anything but,” he said.

Mr Moore said he did not relish the prospect of 34 200-metre high turbines – “roughly twice the height of Big Ben” – and said his objection latter raised “grave concerns.”

“It harms our environment, our ecology, our wildlife and our bird population.

“It harms our precious peatland, our peat bogs and its carbon storage potential, it harms our heritage, our landscape, and our communities and neighbours,” he said.

Mr Moore has long-pressured fellow West Yorkshire and Lancashire MPs to come out in opposition to the proposals.

After considering his response carefully, Calder Valley Labour MP Josh Fenton-Glynn, in whose constituency the project would be sited, has done.

Mr Fenton-Glynn has always argued that the issues need careful consideration rather than immediate opposition, but says the science has led him to oppose Calderdale Energy Park in his response.

“I continue to have concerns about the impact of the Calderdale Energy Park on peat.

“I believe in net zero but I don’t think we get there by damaging carbon stores.

“Peatland is our Amazon rainforest and we should follow the science and protect it.

“That is why I have stated my opposition in response to the consultation,” he said on his social media pages.

Hebden Bridge and Todmorden East councillors from different parties have also responded in the negative.

Green Party and Labour politicians have been pressed for their view, and have now given it.

Councillor Hannah Mickleburgh-Benn (Green, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden East) is opposing the proposals in her consultation response.

“I remain – based on the most recent updated information provided by Calderdale Energy Park – strongly opposed to the Walshaw Moor wind farm proposal,” she said.

This is because the provided literature does not provide information on key parts of the construction and decommission in order to form a complete opinion on the environmental and ecological effects, she said.

In her response she asks dozens of questions of the company on a range of aspects of the proposal.

These include concerns about the impact on peatland, challenging assertions that the wider region and this site in particular is among the best for siting wind power, questioning its operational capacity and predicted carbon savings, assessment of flood risk potential impacts, and questions about the proposed cabling arrangements.

Coun Mickleburgh-Benn said in her consultation response: “Besides the implausibility of restoring a peat bog that’s been upearthed and in storage for up to 35 years, leaving turbine bases and roads on the site could have a legacy of negative impact for local ecology.”

And Labour’s Coun Sarah Courtney has said: “I am aware that we absolutely need to be supporting sustainable energy production, and that it is important that we are not NIMBYs and embrace opportunities for our area to contribute to renewable electricity production.

“However, having read information available, the scientific evidence in terms of water and peat, appears to indicate that this moor may not be the right site for these turbines.”

Calderdale Council’s ruling Reform UK group have long been clear in their opposition to the scheme.

“We will fight to scrap Net Zero, protect our countryside, and put local people before profiteers.” (John Greenwood)

Banbury Cross Players presents:

Underdog: The Other Other Brontë

by Sarah Gordon

Thu 18th — Sat 20th June

Main Auditorium, The Mill Arts Centre Spiceball Park Road, Banbury , OX16 5QE

This is not a story about well-behaved women. This is a story about sisterhood, love, jealousy and competition. The gritty and controversial plot lines and characters mirror those in Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey, and Wuthering Heights.

It is also an irreverent and funny re-telling of the life and legend of the Brontë sisters, and the sibling power dynamics that shaped their uneven rise to fame.

It is a familiar story told with a modern voice that brings these three exceptional women to life for an audience of today.

A rare first-edition copy of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, complete with its original spelling errors, is poised to go under the hammer for the first time in over a century. The auction comes as the tragic, tempestuous romance continues to captivate new audiences, fueled by a recent big-screen adaptation.

Christie’s auction house announced Monday that this particular volume is the first copy of the novel in its publisher’s original cloth binding to be offered at auction since 1908.

Only about 250 first editions were initially printed, and this specific book has remained in a private library since shortly after its publication in 1847.

Mark Wiltshire, a books and manuscripts specialist at Christie’s, underscored the extreme rarity of such an item. "The vast majority of surviving copies were rebound for collectors or libraries, meaning original cloth examples are now extremely scarce," he stated.

Being sold along with a copy of sister Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey, it’s expected to sell for between 400,000 pounds and 600,000 pounds ($540,000 and $800,000) at a June 30 auction in London. Both books carry the male pen names the sisters adopted to get published: Ellis Bell for Emily and Acton Bell for Anne.

Wuthering Heights was rushed to publication after the success of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and the first edition is notorious for its typographical errors including, Wiltshire noted, the occasional misspelling of the word “heights.”

Emerald Fennell ’s recent movie with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as mismatched pair Cathy and Heathcliff is the latest work to be inspired by — and take liberties with — Brontë’s brooding, Gothic tale.

The novel shocked some critics when it was published, with one in 1848 decrying its “vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.”

Since then, Wiltshire said, it has “moved beyond literature to become a cultural touchstone,” inspiring art, music — notably Kate Bush’s pop-operatic 1978 song — and multiple film adaptations.

“It remains a work that artists return to again and again because of its emotional force, its atmosphere, and its psychological intensity, ensuring its place not only in literary history but in wider cultural imagination,” Wiltshire said. (Jill Lawless)