Congratulations to Wheal Jane Solar Park

So one local development has squeezed through the Government's subsidy cut deadline for large solar installations.

This is Wheal Jane, near Truro. And not only is it local but currently it is the largest yet built in the UK. (See: UK's biggest solar farm connected to the grid )

I remember reading a column by one local Tory MP - pointing out that solar installation subsidies should be curtailed for large-scale developments.

Shortly afterwards the new Con-Dem government did indeed announce their decision to cut such subsidies. (Read a bit more from the Guardian here.)

I find this attitude bizarre coming from the Tories - who so favour the interests of business and industry usually.

(Aah. But NOT at the expense of the tax-payer, they piously intone.)

Heavens, but Cornwall - and whole of the South West in fact - desperately needs support in establishing local industries other than the great god Tourism.... and supermarkets.

I do believe that the benefit payments liable, as more and more lose their jobs in the closing industries of the South West, would also be "at the expense of the tax-payer"?

(Aah but we have plans for benefits payments too. Ever hear of The Big Society?)

Anyway, I find it totally appropriate that this ex-tin mine site be converted as part of a potential new Cornish industry - renewable energy. For those of you that don't realise it... Those charismatic, Cornish landscapes - with their ruined engine houses, and mine shafts? Yes they are beautiful. And the surrounding stretches of heather, gorse and bare soil? These are themselves the product of the toxic waste derived from the mining process. This is not a green field site. It is post-Industrial.

(Aah..just the spot for some social housing...)