WRITERS’ ROVERS
A green energy scheme has caused havoc in Dave’s village, but two tricked-up Land Rovers came to the rescue
Down the bottom of my garden is a millstream that diverts the main flow of the River Nene through an old water mill and winds through a picturesque meadow before rejoining the main river about half a mile downstream. The fast-flowing stream sparkles across shallows and banks of gravel and is a happy hunting ground for kingfishers and otters, as well as being a haven for fish that migrate from the main river to spawn in the shallows.
In front of the mill is a ford that is the only access for farm vehicles to reach the pastures on the far side of the river, as well as Environment Agency vehicles needing to get to the lock gates on the navigable main river. The ford is strictly private, but over the last 20 years I have often used it as the perfect location for wading photographs, having got permission from the mill owners, my good friends Ian and Tina Donald.
Tragically, Ian suddenly passed away last year, aged just 60, but I will always remember him as a great drinking buddy as well as a huge Land Rover fan. He owned various Range Rovers over the years as well as a distinctive blue open-top Defender 90, which was once the subject of a magazine feature.
On that occasion, my LRM colleague Mark Dixon was the photographer and, as it was a hot day, he changed into swimming trunks so that he could lie down in the shallow water to get dramatic shots of Ian’s Defender coming through the ford. It wasn’t until later, when he went to get changed and showered in my cottage, that Mark realised he’d got an unwelcome visitor – a leech – firmly attached to the part of his anatomy he’d least like to have anything attached.
The classic method seasoned explorers use to get rid of leeches is to hold a lighted cigarette close to the offending creature, so that the heat causes it to lose its grip. I was a smoker at the time of Mark’s misfortune, but I can’t remember him asking to borrow a cigarette…
Anyway, I digress. A major concern in the village at the moment is a hydroelectric scheme that has received planning permission. This will divert water around the lock on the main river and through an electricity-generating turbine. The fear many of us have is that water that would normally flow down the millstream will be diverted into the main river, causing the current to slow down and the gravel areas to silt up. As far as I’m concerned, this would be an
environmental catastrophe – and all for the sake of an expensive development that at its peak would be able to deliver enough electricity to power seven homes.
Of course, the great expense isn’t being met by the developer. This counts as a green scheme, so of course there is a huge grant available – paid for by ordinary folk like you and me. It is a classic case of a reverse Robin Hood – you know, robbing from the poor to line the pockets of the rich.
Either way, the whole exercise has been a comedy of errors. Work started last week, with a small army of Polish workers arriving on site to erect safety fencing. They were closely followed by a large and expensive digger that arrived in the village on a low-loader, took a wrong turn and got stuck for an hour or two in the village hall car park before finally reaching its correct destination.
Once there, it started digging, but only for an hour or so. Work was halted when a very irate council officer arrived on the scene, horrified that work had begun before all the planning conditions had been met. So the workers stopped digging and proceeded to make a bonfire from the huge pile of riverside trees and bushes that had been hacked down. Unfortunately the wind was blowing directly at the village and we were all enveloped in clouds of chocking smoke.
But that was the least of our worries. We also had a power cut. Despite only having an hour of digging, the workers had managed to cut into the high-voltage cable that delivered power to the lock gates, which caused a bit of a bang in the village sub-station. Soon afterwards, two well-appointed TDCI Defender 110s from Western Power Distribution arrived on the scene. One was equipped with a cherrypicker, the other a box van body housing tools and spares. Both had powerful mobile generators in tow, in case they couldn’t fix the fault.
While the experts tried to repair the fault in the sub-station, I had a look round their Land Rovers. Both were equipped with powerful Rotech H14W hydraulic winches, capable of pulling 3500 kg. They were powered by hydraulic pumps, nestling under the bonnet, and controlled by levers on the front nearside wings.
The Defenders also sat on very meaningful and knobbly BF Goodrich Mud Terrain tyres. I got chatting to one of the technicians, who told me they often needed those winches and mud tyres, because most of their working lives were spent driving across country to access power lines in the middle of fields.
These men loved their Land Rovers and told me they were devastated that Defenders were no longer in production. Not for sentimental reasons, but because they make their work easier… and Western Power Distribution is, apparently, unsure with what to replace their versatile fleet of workhorses.
“We’ve had some Isuzus on trial, but they’re a disaster – they’re just not up to the job,” said my new friend, adding: “We’re all hoping the new Defender when it comes out is up to the job and can do what our old Land Rovers do.”
That’s a sentiment every Land Rover enthusiast will agree with.
After an hour or two of toil, the men from Western Power decided they couldn’t repair the fault and connected up one of their huge mobile generators, capable of powering the whole village, which they left with a wheel clamp attached. Obviously they’d heard about the recent crime wave in the village when the lights off my Ninety were nicked!
The sub-station has now been repaired and the generator has gone. It’s a shame, because it was a lot less obtrusive than the turbine scheme and could power a whole village of about 40 homes rather than just seven. I expect it would be a lot cheaper, too.