Couple who sued Big Wind, are gagged, home is sold (UK)
Mar 16, 2012
Print ArticleEditor’s note: Jane & Julian Davis, who have often appeared in these pages, sued the wind developer for making their home & property uninhabitable. (Click here and here.) Both Davises suffered from severe Wind Turbine Syndrome. They had to move out of their home and farm. (Jane is a nurse midwife.) Eventually, they sued the developer and took him to the UK’s highest court.
On the eve of winning their suit, the Davises took a settlement, which included a gag clause. They would, forevermore, never speak publicly about their ordeal. And their home was bought by the developer, at “fire sale” cost.
“‘Noise nuisance’ farmhouse is sold”
—in the Spalding Guardian: Lincolnshire Free Press (3/16/12)
The farmhouse at the heart of a High Court battle over an alleged noise nuisance created by the wind farm at Deeping St Nicholas has been sold.
The sale of the property at Grays Farm, on North Drove Bank, Spalding, has been revealed in Land Registry documents more than three months after a secret settlement was reached in the case.
The new owners have been registered as Fenland Windfarms Ltd – one of the parties that was being sued by Jane and Julian Davis as part of the proceedings.
The firm, along with RC Tinsley Ltd, Nicholas Watts and Fenland Green Power Co-operative Ltd, had all denied liability.
The public property register documents also show the sale price to be £125,000 – more than 20 per cent less than the house had been judged to be worth five years ago. The property had been valued at £165,000 by surveyors in 2007.
The company has since declined to comment on its intentions for the house.
Tammy Calvert, from Energy4All Limited and Associated Co-ops on behalf of Fenland Windfarms, said: “All parties to the claim, Davis v Tinsley and Others, which was being heard by Mr Justice Hickinbottom in the High Court and which was due to resume in Court on December 1, 2011, are pleased to report that the case has been settled.
“The terms of that settlement are strictly confidential, and the parties will not be answering any questions about the terms of that agreement.”
The private settlement was made just two days before expert witnesses were due to be called before the High Court for the case in December.
It brought an end to a five-year battle for Mr and Mrs Davis, who claimed they were driven out of their home because of the noise from the eight wind turbines.
They had told the court the sounds and vibrations had varied from a low-key hum to a swoosh and pulsing beat.
The couple moved out into rented accommodation in Spalding when they claimed the noise had left them unable to sleep.
Their claim was not backed by wind farm landowner Mr Watts, who lives 910 metres from the nearest turbine.
Mrs Davis said: “We are looking forward to moving on with our lives but can not make any further comment on the settlement of the case.”
Comment by Dr Sarah Laurie on 03/16/2012 at 8:06 pm
Dear Calvin,
Thank you so much for publicising this issue. Yet another lie of the global wind industry is exposed with hard evidence: namely, that wind turbines do not affect property values. We know they do, and furthermore that property in the vicinity of industrial wind developments becomes unsaleable.
The health consequences of this are obvious. People cannot sell, so either walk away and leave a major capital asset, if they are able to find somewhere else to go, and suffer significant personal impoverishment, and personal stress and distress. Those who are less well off and who are towards the end of their working lives are the most adversely affected by this, since they cannot just “start again.” Alternatively, they are trapped in homes which are making them increasingly unwell, unable to sell their home but with nowhere else to go.
There are so many others who cannot speak publicly of their ordeal. Including Victor and Trish Godfrey in Australia, the numerous families from Toora in Victoria, the families in Ontario, in the USA.
Many of these good people have made a huge personal contribution to publicising the issues, in hostile local environments, at a time when they were very unwell, in order to ensure that the adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines were made known to the rest of the world.
It is so important that we do not forget them all, and the contributions they have made. I am sure all of us understand the personal pressure they were under to try and protect their families, which is the reason these settlements are accepted with the gag clause intact.
Thank you to Jane, Julian, Trish, Victor, Barb, Dennis, and the countless others around the world who have been forced to abandon your homes because of what the wind turbines have done to you and your families.
Editor’s note: The author is Sarah Laurie, MD, Medical Director of the Waubra Foundation. (Note that Dr. Laurie’s medical degree, in keeping with the British system of conferring medical degrees, is technically “M.B.” Bachelor of Medicine. Since the “M.B.” is in all ways the equivalent of the American “M.D.” degree, and since American readers typically don’t have a clue what “M.B.” stands for, and since there is no such thing as an earned “M.D.” degree in Australia or the UK, this site will continue to list Dr. Laurie’s degree as “M.D.”)
Comment by Tom Whitesell on 03/17/2012 at 7:12 am
Along with causing suffering to health, property values, and wildlife, the wind industry compromises the natural right of free speech.
Comment by Andreas Marciniak on 03/17/2012 at 7:19 am
Mr and Mrs Davis,
I wish you good luck with the rest of your life, and hope you get some peace and quiet now. We will be here, fighting on. We can’t just allow these leases to go on and on. The way I see it, if there is nothing wrong with turbines, why have gag clauses in the first place ?
All the best,
Andreas
Comment by Henning Theorell MD on 03/17/2012 at 4:06 pm
Dear Mr and Mrs Davis,
I want to express my sorrow and pity for your situation, hoping that your future will be less stressful and annoying.
Although it may be only slightly comforting to you, it seems the problem with gag clauses from wind turbine companies is very real in Sweden, as well. For example, in the southern part of Sweden, Skåne, a wind farm developer has offered 200 homeowners facing a future wind farm project of 17 WTs of 2MW in their region—many of these within 500-1000 m of their homes—a fixed amount of 200000 SEK (i.e., 20000 Lb), as a fixed compensation for an average 20% decline in their property value. This would be for the rest of their lives. Many of these people have tried to sell their properties for a long time, with no success! Even though the officially accepted noise limit in rural areas in Sweden is as low as 40 dBA daytime and 35 dBA nighttime, recent studies of 5500 properties surrounded by 1200 WTs (2-3MW) show that 15-20% are annoyed or very annoyed by the WT noise if living within 1000 m of the WTs.
What has not been studied are the individual predisposing risk factors for noise “annoyance” for people living in the vicinity of WTs. Anyone studying such risk factors should take into account metabolic syndrome diabetes type II, PTSD and burnout syndromes, inner ear illnesses with tinnitus and balance disturbances, already present noise sensitivity and sleep disturbances. Thus more easily awakened are people shown to have low frequency, or so-called sleep, spindles in somnographic EEG’s as compared to those who have higher frequency. We must assess those who are at higher risk for developing adverse symtoms when exposed to longterm WT noise
Yours,
Henning Theorell, MD
Comment by Anonymous on 08/18/2012 at 6:16 am
jean Hall tamworth staffs
Dunstall Cottage
Dunstall Lane
Hopwas
Tamworth
B78 3AX
I also have a noise problem,my house is a 1,000 feet away from a distribution centre which has given me over sixty kidney infections.I have antibotics that are not even in my medical notes.
This has also caused family problems.My husband passed away in March this year because,he did not no how it was affecting me .
Can anyone give me advice please.
Mr + Mrs Davis took my vidoe to the High Court with them of lorries going out all night long.
Jean Hall