I suppose I’d better begin by explaining where we are when I talk of ‘the Elenydd’. It’s the wild, and largely unpopulated uplands shown on this Google Earth capture.
The last true wilderness in Wales. Now it’s being industrialised and destroyed by the ‘renewables’ industry, all foreign-owned companies.
With other parcels of land being bought by ‘environmental’ groups and other sheep in wolf’s clothing. (That is not an allusion to the Fabian Society.) One of these groups gives the appearance of being Welsh, the others are the usual suspects; National Trust (NT), Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) . . .
Here’s how Google AI describes the Elenydd:
The least populated and wildest area in southern Britain . . .
The largest continuous tract of blanket mire in the Welsh uplands, designated as a Special Area of Conservation supporting rare birds like red kites, merlins, and diverse upland flora.
Clearly, we are dealing with a very special area – one that should be left to those who have cared for it for generations. But that would mean farmers and others, now viewed as the enemy by those who have elected themselves our saviours from evils as diverse as the climate crisis and the threat from the far-right.
For the two are invariably linked. Those dictating how we behave, even what we eat, in response to the ‘climate crisis’, are often the same people telling us what’s acceptable thinking in the political sphere.
Because it’s all about control. Controlling us.
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FURTHER BACKGROUND
I’m going to start with a document produced by the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ back in 2019, called Future Wales The National Plan 2040. There, in amongst this melange of hopes, dreams, incoherent ramblings and utter bullshit, on page 94, we find a map showing the areas set aside for wind farms.
They’re numbered and bounded in black. Roughly speaking, the Elenydd is north east of the area 8 panhandle and east of area 6.
Whatever the original purpose of this map showing ‘pre-assessed’ areas, it soon proved worthless and misleading.
A fact illustrated by the map below, produced by Caru Teifi, a group protesting against the pylon runs needed to take the electricity intermittently generated by wind farms to the grid connection point south of Carmarthen.
In the south it appears that most of the turbines built (light blue), and planned (dark blue) are outside the ‘pre-assessed’ areas.
And as you’ll see in a minute. it’s the same – or worse – in the area we’re looking at.
So what was the point of the ‘pre-assessed’ areas in the 2019 National Plan if the ‘Welsh Government was simply going to allow a “near enough” approach that borders on a free-for-all?
Time now to look at the wind turbine projects on the Elenydd. The known knowns, the known unknowns, the unknown unknowns, and the unknown knowns.
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WHAT’S PLANNED
We can safely identify four projects. Three we’ve known about for a few years, with another announced this year.
The first involves Scottish company Bute Energy Ltd. Their project is Lan Fawr. There was another project nearby labelled Bryn Brawd, but it seems they’ve merged. Now it’s one sooper-dooper project with 55 turbines up to 800ft in height. Labelled 1 in the image below, and in two parts.
Next is Belltown Power’s Waun Maenllwyd project. Just 4 to 6 turbines. Labelled 2 in the map above. It’s suggested the Belltown project might be taken over by Bute. Alternatively – and I find this interesting – that the Foresight Group, which is behind Belltown, might take over Bute!
Number 3 is Galileo Empower UK’s Bryn Cadwgan project. Galileo has it’s UK office in Edinburgh (and an outpost in Cardiff), but is owned by investors and pension funds from just about everywhere, as far away as New Zealand.
Lastly, we take a brief look at the newest of them, EDF’s Nant y Maen. This straddles the Tregaron to Abergwesyn road. It’s definitely in the pipeline; confirmed by this ‘WG’ document. EDF is wholly owned the French Government.
Local sources insist there are other projects yet to be unveiled. Two, it’s believed.
Access to these projects is planned from the A482 at Pumsaint. Something I covered in The Road To Hell back in November 2023. Then it’s over the old Dolaucothi Estate, now owned, like far too much of Wales, by the National Trust.
After Pumsaint, it’s anyone’s guess, but I guarantee it will involve new roads, hundreds or thousands of trees felled, and massive disruption to the environment over an extended period of time.
But before reaching Pumsaint the turbine columns and blades will be transported on huge diesel smoke-belching trucks along country roads from Swansea docks.
Disruption and destruction all the way so that foreign investors can make money.
Unless, of course, you’re stupid enough to believe that this is all being done to save the planet, and Wales will somehow benefit. Are you that stupid?
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‘WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE NEWTS!’
In the intro I referred to a couple of recent purchases in the Elenydd by rewilders and others. So let’s look at them.
First, is one I covered in Land Of Our Fathers, But Not Our Children, in February. This concerned the purchase of 1195 acres by an outfit called Tir Natur.
The area bought is shown in this map by Caru Cymru I linked to earlier. It’s the dull green area below EDF’s Nant y Maen project. (I urge you to consult the Caru Teifi website maps and use the layers available to see what’s what in the area.)
Quite a purchase, and achieved with, according to Farmers Weekly and other sources, a “philanthropic bridging loan“. Wasn’t that nice!
Earlier this month, we learnt that the RSPB had bought 96 hectares at ‘Galltybere’ or ‘Gallt-y-Bere’, which is shown on OS maps (see above) as Craig Alltyberau. This adjoins the planned Galileo Empower Bryn Cadwgan wind farm.
And whaddya know – this purchase also received a “philanthropic loan“.
I wonder where these ‘loans’ come from? Can I have one?
Now for a detour, but not really a digression. We’re going to Scotland, sticking with the RSPB – and there’s more magic money!
Down the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh, not far from North Berwick, rising from the North Sea is the volcanic plug of Bass Rock. A home to many birds, and the largest colony of Northern Gannets.
These are magnificent birds, with a wingspan of six feet or more. While searching for prey they soar or glide until folding back their wings to dive into the sea.
Not far away is the Isle of May. This is home to 50,000 puffins, plus guillemots, razorbills, and other birds.
Hanging over this avian idyll is the threat of 307 wind turbines, in a project approved last year. As might be expected, RSPB Scotland objected. Stating:
Berwick Bank is a gigantic windfarm. To put it in perspective, it would take up an area four times the size of Edinburgh with more than 300 turbines – each the height of six Scott Monuments.
But then something strange happened. Operating through the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the UK government made a grant of £586,000 to RSPB Scotland – to buy Bass Rock!
I can’t help thinking that what was really being bought was the RSPB’s silence.
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CONCLUSION
You don’t need to be cynical to believe that when there’s billions of pounds, dollars, euros or whatever in profits to be made, certain measures will be taken to guarantee those profits. Among those ‘measures’ will be neutralising the opposition.
Unless they’re powerful and well organised, local groups can be largely disregarded, developers can even play one off against another. The same principle applies to landowners and farmers. But when it comes to groups that are well-established, with a national or even international structure, and have the ear of politicians, then a different approach is needed.
And this might explain the magic money that appears regularly in the accounts of wildlife and environmental groups. Sometimes it’s out in the open.
Aviva, the institutional investor owned by Vanguard and others, has given just shy of £40m to the Wildlife Trusts to restore Celtic Rainforests along the western edge of Britain. Much of this money will be coming to Wales. Some already has, and it’s gone to the Elenydd.
I dealt with this February, in The Latest Enviro-scam – ‘Celtic Rainforests’.
In fact, it seems most 0f Wales is a rainforest. Who knew?
Though the Elenydd seems to be in the ‘Oceanic Climate’ zone rather than that described as ‘Hyper Oceanic Climate’.
At the risk of coming across as a cynical old bastard I’ll spell out what I think might be happening in the Elenydd. Shyster ‘developers’ want to destroy an almost pristine wilderness for profit, and have, by one route or another, given money to environmental groups to buy adjoining land.
The developers will then argue that wind turbines, and the work associated with them, pose no threat to wildlife or the environment. If they did – then surely their neighbours like Tir Natur and RSPB would be complaining. “Stands to reason, squire“.
For their part, the recipients of this largesse will tell themselves that sacrifices must be made for the greater good and the bigger picture.
For you must remember that those I’m describing have bought into the climate scam, making their position ambivalent. And rarely have I seen it more evident than in the RSPB Scotland statement I linked earlier.
We can unlock a future where Scotland’s already struggling seabirds are helped to recover, while producing the renewable energy needed to help fight climate change.
So, for the greater good, sacrifices must be made. But that’s OK, as long as it’s the dicky birds making the sacrifice.
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© Royston Jones 2026
