Wooley: Wind farm at Stanley is simply nuts

They wouldn’t build them down in Hobart. But Stanley, five hours drive away, is just about near enough, writes Charles Wooley.

STANLEY. ‘Quaint’ is an overused word but unavoidable because Stanley is the most romantic and beautiful of all the historical towns in Australia. That’s a big claim but after decades of

professional travel I have seen them all and reckon that only Gulgong in NSW, ‘The Town on the Ten-dollar Note’ comes close. Still, not that close.

I’d put Stanley on the one-hundred-dollar note.

Mainland travel writers tend to go for Yungaburra in Queensland, Beechworth or Daylesford in northeast Victoria or Silverton near Broken Hill in South Australia. Their bucket lists usually mention Port Fairy, Goolwa and Broome but rarely Stanley, which is much older than all of them.

Sometimes a nice place just gets lucky enough to be left off the map for a long time. It can be a blessing. Hence today Stanley remains intact and unspoilt.

It has double the charm of any those better-known towns.

In the last decade there has been change under the Nut, but it has been change well managed.

Before interstate travel was interrupted by the plague, Stanley had already been discovered by discerning tourists of the kind Tassie needs. The ones who appreciate authenticity, good food and beautiful scenery and are prepared to pay for it.

The historic village of Stanley, in far north-west Tasmania, is nestled at the base of The Nut, a sheer-sided bluff - all that remains of an ancient volcanic plug. Picture: Wai Nang Poon Susan Bugg

It must be ten years since I last saw Stanley. The town has spruced and polished itself without any great alteration or loss of historical character. Care has been taken to avoid the architectural cancers that infest the old city of Hobart.

Tourists have been tastefully and discreetly housed in delightful accommodation repurposed from existing buildings some of them almost 200 years old.

With good planning and restrained development Stanley has done a great job. The title of Tassie’s Top Tourism Town 2021 was well deserved.

Along with the praise of visitors and lovers of preserved history, what other reward have the good and thoughtful burghers of Stanley received?

The improbable answer is a wind farm; 12 gigantic turbines set atop a dozen 150m towers each of them 20 metres higher than the iconic Stanley Nut. They will be situated on the

shore four kilometres west of the town and behind a hill. But the locals say the blades will still be visible from the main street.

Worse, they worry about the ‘noise pollution’ which is a common complaint worldwide from those who live in near proximity to wind turbines. There is presently a major battle before the courts in Victoria concerning the Bald Hills wind farm in Gippsland. Last week a complainant testified, “I often have to get up and drive to a beach a few kilometres away to get some sleep in the car.”

Science is still undecided on the possible injurious effects of audible and sub-audible sound on man and beast.

Over many years of reporting the subject here and abroad, all I can say regarding populations who live near wind turbines is that, technically speaking, they really piss people off.

Farmer Robert Smith. Behind him will rise the proposed 150 meter wind towers.

Stanley identity Robert Smith who farms 187 acres on the hill above the proposed Western Plains wind farm site reckons, “I will get the full force of the noise and it will ruin my view.”

He looks west across Bass Strait towards the Hunter group of islands which include King, Hunter and Three Hummock off the northwestern tip of Tasmania.

“It is a beautiful view. It’s why I bought it and I haven’t taken it for granted in the 25 years I’ve been here.” Robert says he has nothing against wind turbines, “But this one is clearly in the wrong place. Not just because it’s in my backyard but because it’s bad for the whole district.”

The company behind the wind farm is the Australian renewable energy developer Epuron, which is working on about a dozen wind projects nationally.

Some are much larger than Stanley’s 12 turbine Western Plains project. In Queensland’s far north, near the Tully Falls National Park, Epuron’s Chalumbin wind farm will install 95 wind turbines to produce 570MW of electricity. That’s 100MW more than the output of Tasmania’s Gordon dam which flooded Lake Pedder.

Suddenly across Australia and around the world there is a Wind Rush.

Trillions of dollars in government incentives and tax relief are being poured into renewable energy projects to allow nations to reach reduced carbon emission targets by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

Highfield House at Stanley. PICTURE CHRIS KIDD

Of course, some so called ‘climate deniers’ call it ‘greenwash’.

It has been alleged that some companies like Epuron are only there for a quick profit and not to save the planet. They develop wind farms and then on sell them.

This month the investment bank Lazard was hired to sell Epuron itself. A spokesperson for Epuron told me that the company was “exploring potential investment to support its next wave of projects. This does not affect the progress of current projects.”

Clearly now is a good time for any renewable energy company to make hay while the sun shines and the wind blows.

With global temperatures rising, most OECD countries have decided that at least part of the answer is blowing in the wind. Which can be bad news if you live leaning into it in a place like Stanley where the westerlies are so strong, it is said, if the wind ever dropped, everyone would fall flat on their faces.

“Stanley’s a tourism town now and in the last decade house prices have doubled and doubled again and then some,” Sam Humphries told me at the bar of his fabulous Angels’ Share wine and whisky store in a grand old bank building in Church Street.

Sam, who is the son of a local fisherman and boatbuilder told me, “In the old days we used to say, ‘Stanley is a drinking town with a fishing problem’. But now it’s much more cosmopolitan. We’ve still got the fish but now its wine with your lobster and Tasmanian whisky to finish.”

Sam left town for a couple of decades and lived the high life of a sound recordist travelling the world, sometimes on the road with me.

He developed some expensive tastes which might explain the classy whisky bar. Stanley today, just like Sam himself, is much more savvy than it was back when he left home to see the world.

“The place is heaps more sophisticated. Twenty years ago, they would have gotten away with the wind farm but now we’ve all become activists for our town and our lifestyle.

It won’t happen without a hell of a fight,” Sam Humphries warned.

During two days in Stanley staying with Dusty in dog-friendly accommodation at the very smart Ship Inn (I worried it was too good for an old journo) I met no one who was against

renewables or who disbelieved our grandchildren were facing a climate crisis.

Sam Humphreys at the Angels' Share in Stanley.

As Sam Humphries told me, “We are not against wind power, we just don’t need to hear it or see it. They wouldn’t cop it on the beach in Sandy Bay. Why should we cop it here.”

That same night at the Angels’ Share I met Sam’s mate Jeff Power a commercial artist and a cartoonist for the local paper, The Circular Head Chronicle. Jeff had been amused by the ambiguity of a town so obsessed with heritage planning suddenly having to accommodate a wind farm. In one simple sketch he said everything that it took me a page to say.

Clearly a wind farm three to four kilometres from a heritage tourist village doesn’t look or sound like good planning.

In Britain where they have embraced wind power there are 1100 turbines producing 25 per cent of the nation’s electricity. But in stormy Scotland, where half of Britain’s wind turbines are situated, the locals aren’t happy.

Diplomatically the British Government is now building new wind farms offshore.

Years ago, in a Welsh valley lined with wind turbines, a disgruntled farmer told me, “They wouldn’t have those bloody horrible things down in England. Anything nasty its always the same, ‘Lets wish it on the Taffies or the Jocks’.”

Sam Humphries from Stanley’s Angels’ Share was quite right.

They wouldn’t build them down in Hobart

But Stanley, five hours drive away, is just about near enough.