East Yorkshire MP Greg Knight is one of over 100 Conservative MPs who are campaigning for the £400 million-a-year subsidies paid to the onshore wind turbine industry to be cut.

The MPs are also calling on Prime Minister David Cameron to tighten up planning laws so that local people have a better chance of stopping new farms being developed and protecting the countryside.

There are currently more than 3,000 onshore wind turbines in Britain and at the current subsidy levels at least 4,500 more are expected to be constructed over the coming years. These wind farms receive hundreds of millions of pounds from the Government and much of this cash ends up in the hands of energy companies and investment funds based abroad.

Mr Knight, who has long actively campaigned against wind farms said, “Wind farms are inefficient and unreliable. The wind cannot be guaranteed to blow at times of greatest energy demand. They are also extremely unsightly, blighting one of our most valuable natural resources – the countryside”.

Mr Knight added: “Wind farms are forcing up energy bills and swallowing disproportionate amounts of taxpayer-funded subsidies. It is wrong in these financially difficult times that hard-pressed consumers must pay for the expansion of inefficient, intermittent and unsightly onshore wind power.

Mr Knight is one of a number of signatories of a letter sent to the Prime Minister last week on this subject.

He is also due to meet the Environment Minister Richard Benyon MP later this month to discuss ways of protecting the beauty of the Yorkshire Wolds from inappropriate windfarm development and preserving it for future generations.

The European Union wants a major expansion of onshore wind farm development across Europe to help meet their green targets.

However there is increasing opposition to this form of green energy, with critics claiming that they are inefficient, expensive and a major blight on the landscape.

A new Parliamentary Group has been set up to fight further wind farm blight and this has been joined by East Yorkshire MP Greg Knight.

The new group is chaired by the MP for Daventry, Chris Heaton-Harris, a Conservative.

Greg Knight said: “Our Ministers need to look at this policy again. Wind Farms are an inefficient technology, they add to the bills of consumers because of their huge subsidy and it is the wrong renewable for the UK. We need to change the policy.”

There are about 3,000 onshore wind turbines with a few hundred dotted around off the coast of Britain.

Mr Knight added: “Wind Farms generate less than two per cent of the nation’s power and only produce energy around 30 per cent of the time. When the wind is not blowing – or even blowing too fast as in the recent storms – other sources of electricity have to be used, mostly gas and coal.”

A pledge to cut emissions, written into law in last Labour government’s Climate Change Act, requires a major expansion of renewable energy development.

Forecasts have suggested that the requirement for more wind energy will add £280 to average energy bills by 2020.

A study in the Netherlands recently found that turning on and off gas power stations used as a back-up to cover spells when there is little wind, actually produces more carbon than a steady supply of energy from an efficient modern gas station.

Mr Knight says he wants to see more work done to harness wave power. He says there is as much as 27GW of electricity in the sea to be harnessed, -the equivalent of eight nuclear power stations – “a huge resource that is going untapped.”

“Marine energy is about harnessing the power of the sea – including big waves and tidal currents – to generate electricity. Analysis released by the Carbon Trust in May last year showed the UK could create over 68,000 jobs in this emerging sector.”

“Britain is an island, and we should be using our long shoreline rather than desecrating our beautiful landscape,” he says.

East Yorkshire MP Greg Knight has condemned the race to install more onshore wind farms across East Yorkshire.  He has labelled them ‘costly, largely useless and a scar on our beautiful countryside’.

“When wind farms are erected our countryside views are destroyed”, said Mr Knight.  He added, “The only ‘winner’ is the person who leases the land and pockets the cash. For everyone else there is a cost. Some local residents have their property blighted and we all have our views ruined”.

The Renewable Energy Foundation has criticised onshore wind farms as costly and inefficient.  They point out that at times of high wind, operators are forced to turn turbines off to prevent damage to the electricity grid, yet during winter, when demand for energy is highest, wind farms are unable to produce the large amounts of power needed. The Foundation said, “This means that conventional fossil fuel plants would need to be switched on and off as many as 23 times a month”, drastically reducing any potential emissions savings.

Mr Knight said, “Energy companies should be required to give priority to exploring offshore wind farms and we should also be exploring the greater use of wave power”.

The East Riding MP points out that Britain already has the world’s largest offshore wind energy installation just south of East Yorkshire. Mr Knight added, “Britain is an island surrounded by vast open spaces of water.  Offshore wind farms are much less obtrusive to us, their size and noise is moderated by distance and the wind patterns for energy generation are considerably better over the sea”.

“Profit-seeking energy companies prefer onshore wind turbines because the investment involved is significantly lower than installing turbines offshore.

“If we must have more wind energy then any increase in capacity should now be generated offshore or elsewhere”, said Mr Knight.

“I say ‘no more wind farms in East Yorkshire’. These monstrosities are not saving the planet – they are trashing our countryside”.

Shaun Spiers, Chief Executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England has already said: “There will be no public consent for renewable energy infrastructure if it is centrally imposed and causes great damage to the beauty of England’s countryside”.