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Inspired by this article about putting a battery storage site in what appears to objectively be an ideal location, I was thinking about other cracking examples.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgqk5d27lq5o
A family friend that lived opposite a shabby, dangerous, derelict mill that fought the conversion to flats tooth and nail - when complete she conceded it was much better and couldn't really explain why she opposed it.
Local to me at the moment, a new lifeboat station to house the brand new, state of the art lifeboat. It is a going to consume a handful of parking spaces that people like to sit in with their engines running eating their fish and chips. Absolute outrage.
Every flood alleviation scheme ever.
It appears now, every battery storage site, because - fire, something, something, visual intrusion, blah, blah.
People are losing their shit in my area over this...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93jv2wxwypo
...the big joke is the main group behind the campaign have been using power hungry AI generated images to show how scary these pylons are!
It's the general "something absolutely needs to be done to sort out {insert issue here}, as long as it has no impact on me" attitude of most of the general public
See, also, SESPMT (Someone Else Should Pay More Tax)
Two examples I recall:
1. A fuel station being demolished and replaced with homes and locals protested! Who would prefer to live next to a fuel station than a house?
2. A derelict factory replaced with a very similarly-sized block of flats – again, people protested.
People are weird.
The key here is the M in NIMBY. Somebody elses's backyard would be fine.
A family friend that lived opposite a shabby, dangerous, derelict mill that fought the conversion to flats tooth and nail - when complete she conceded it was much better and couldn't really explain why she opposed it.
This is really interesting and probably gets to the crux of it. There's something about agency and a sense of ownership, "this is my neighbourhood, so why am I being dictated to about what's happening to it?" or something. WHich in theory could perhaps be answered to some extent by trying to make it collaborative - we're definitely putting flats in here, but within that limitation, what would you like them to look like?
I guess the planning process is already supposed to do that, although in some counties the planning department are an absolute bunch of power-mad dictators
See also HS2. Spiralling costs partly due to having to use more tunnels than initially planned for due to NIMBYs objecting to being able to see or hear a train.
They don't deal with that shit in China
I guess the planning process is already supposed to do that, although in some counties the planning department are an absolute bunch of power-mad dictators
power-mad, almost openly corrupt, have no coherent policy, don't enforce their own decisions, dictators at that.
I think I may have heard of a new low of NIMBYism...
https://capx.co/nimby-watch-chelsea-fights-a-cancer-unit
I think that people sometimes object for the sake of it. There's a desperate need for housing near me and huge resistance against it.
People are weird.
There's a plan to build at the end of my road (more or less) a block of flats that the NIMBYS have decided will block their light and spoil their views (of what, I haven't been able to discern) which on the face of it is fair enough, until you realise that it's replacing an already existing block of flats the exact shape and size - that was thrown up in the 70's and everyone agrees is an eyesore.
This is urban south Manchester by the way, not some remote teeny shortbread tinned pictureque village that development will otherwise spoil.
When Fiddler's Ferry power station (Warrington) was built in the early 1970's, there was outrage because it would be an eyesore.
When Fiddler's Ferry power station was demolished in 2023, there was outrage that such an iconic structure was being taken down.
Although it was a very cool set of explosions.
It all depends whether benefits can be easily quantified. I’m in favour of “green” energy but the huge swathes of land disappearing under solar panels, and battery storage concerns me. There are no benefits to those people living near or those that can see them, all profits disappear abroad or into “funds”. It’s the wrong solution - panels on domestic roof’s, on new builds through legislation and established houses would be better.
See also some wind power installations that actually harm wildlife - in Scotland there has been illegal tree felling in the habitats of rare wildlife - wildcats to be specific, offshore from North Berwick an important bird population is going to be damaged too.
The term “NIMBY” was probably invented by a right wing think tank to discredit legitimate objections. I have some experience of that, across from where I live was once labelled “the most polluted site in Europe”. Developers wanted to opencast the whole valley and dump the pollutants, which included cyanide and other products from coke, tar, chemical production, in a hole or dump elsewhere in the country. We argued there were better ways that included bioremediation and told it was impossible.
Us NIMBY’S (who actually didn’t want it in anyone’s backyard) suffered a lot of abuse, and threats locally and legally via solicitors but after Government became Labour in ‘97 we were saved.
We now have a country park across the road with kingfishers, buzzards, owls and this morning a stork, all without moving the problem to someone else’s backyard.
I’m proud to be a NIMBY, proud to care and look at a different picture!
Trees is another weirdly emotive one. In a previous house somebody had planted a eucalyptus about 5 metres from the gable end. They get bloody massive, it was pushing over a retaining wall next to a public footpath, if it had fallen over it could have landed on our house or a block of flats behind us. I phoned our tree preservation officer to check there were no TPOs or other restrictions and we could cut it down - 'all good, on you go'. On the day the tree surgeon came to chop it down one of the people that lived in the flats it could have fallen on came out to remonstrate, I genuinely thought he was going to assault me or the tree surgeon. Then made a great show of storming off to call the tree preservation officer - went very quiet after he spoke to them.
It's called the "Hill of Hysteria" apparently and also applies to LTNs etc.
It's called the "Hill of Hysteria" apparently and also applies to LTNs etc.
Area where my Mum lives, there's still a (very minority) hardcore contingent of anti-LTN folk, even when the council finally managed to get one of them made permanent and completely rebuilt it to ensure that it would be extremely difficult and expensive to undo it again.
No-one in their right mind would want cars back through that area except for this tiny minority who keep bleating about what a terrible miscarriage of justice has been imposed on their freedoms.
When Fiddler's Ferry power station was demolished in 2023, there was outrage that such an iconic structure was being taken down.
There's now outrage that a set of batteries like the Op describes is proposed on the site.
@robola you look it up and tell me!
Great answer, I don't have the evidence for something I'm asserting - go and disprove that.
From where I'm sitting I can see both the puffin and gannet colonies in the Forth. We get live feedback on the number of seabird deaths as they wash up along the shore. Bird flu and massive winter storms see huge numbers washed up.
The biggest threats to seabird populations are prey species habitat migrating due to warming seas, overfishing of prey, prey habitat destruction through bottom trawling, disease and storms (likely more powerful due to warming climate).
Sure there is going to be a handful of birds fly into wind turbines but is it significant?
People are weird.
There's a plan to build at the end of my road (more or less) a block of flats that the NIMBYS have decided will block their light and spoil their views (of what, I haven't been able to discern) which on the face of it is fair enough, until you realise that it's replacing an already existing block of flats the exact shape and size - that was thrown up in the 70's and everyone agrees is an eyesore.
This is urban south Manchester by the way, not some remote teeny shortbread tinned pictureque village that development will otherwise spoil.
IMHO people get old and hate change, if it’s not like it was when they were kids they get uppity.
I think the art of growing old disgracefully is getting more used to accept change 🙂
Without looking very far - from the “developer” themselves, via the RSPB -
“Berwick Bank offshore wind farm has been consented by the Scottish Government despite being in a highly important area for wildlife, especially seabirds. It is predicted to have severe impacts – the applicant predicts adult annual mortality of thousands of Guillemots, hundreds of Kittiwakes and scores of Razorbills and Puffins. The magnitude of these impacts is so significant it could likely hinder the conservation of sites designated to protect these species.”
People also generally complain more about things in general these days. It's much easier to do a Google search and find a bunch of like minded people to wind each other up.
There's a lot of opposition near me to the proposed routes of the Peak Cluster CO2 pipeline that will bring polluting gas from the likes of that Hope cement factory for storage in the empty gas caverns under Liverpool bay. I don't think people realise there's already thousands of miles of gas, water fuel etc. pipes under Cheshire, and after one season's growth any damage done to fields and countryside will have largely disappeared. It's ridiculous.
And yes of course there's arms thrown up about houses, solar farms, road closures etc. etc. No way would I want to be a local councillor because most of the moaning is directed at them on facebook.
Every flood alleviation scheme ever.
Thats not true. I have worked on a fair few where there have been zero issues.
Communication and engagement go a long way.
East West rail and solar are the big ones round here.
The rail one is the most mind blowing as it will take untold cars off the roads
I've recently advised on this for work.
We probably get a couple of phone calls a year around school neighbours objecting to schools doing school stuff like learning, play and sport...or heaven forbid allowing children to play safely at weekends or holidays.
Peak NIMBY imo.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wn47e292po
In a park near where we live, there’s a plan to plant more trees.
https://libertonassociation.co.uk/news/public-meeting-monday-20th-april-2026/
Guess what? Residents aren’t happy
Developers corrupted friends are out in force today I see.
Bless.
There's a lot of opposition near me to the proposed routes of the Peak Cluster CO2 pipeline that will bring polluting gas from the likes of that Hope cement factory for storage in the empty gas caverns under Liverpool bay. I don't think people realise there's already thousands of miles of gas, water fuel etc. pipes under Cheshire, and after one season's growth any damage done to fields and countryside will have largely disappeared. It's ridiculous.
Yup, here in god's waiting room that is Wirral, opposition to this is everywhere.
I asked my MIL why she opposed it, she said she was worried about leaks. From a CO2 pipeline. So I talked through what CO2 would do to her, living on top of one of the highest points on the peninsula as she does, with the pipeline running through the lowest points, and CO2 being denser than air...
Talked about investment, talked about jobs. But as long as the gold plated pensions keep rolling in, no one's bothered.
Bear in mind she lives less than 10 miles from stanlow which pumps out so much shitty stuff anyway (and if that thing ever leaked and blew up, Wirral would be an island).
i went to a consultation for a large energy transfer project near us out of curiosity to see what they were proposing
the folk presenting were woefully under prepared and were outright lying at points largely about knowledge of existing infrastructure that everyone from the local area knew existed - which as it turned out prevented their project.
They lost a large section of the local support that day.
I can only imagine that rinses and repeats as they try to steam roller things through nationally.
Oh, and while I'm on. I've visited a care home a few times recently. At the weekend the papers were delivered... All were the Mail or the Express.
Now, all of the occupants I've seen are elderly white skinned people. All of the (caring) staff are not. A couple of the staff have broad English (Yorkshire) accents, most do not, and those seem to be 1st gen immigrants from a very varied array of origins.
I wonder if that nice Mr Farage has stopped the boats yet?
See also HS2. Spiralling costs partly due to having to use more tunnels than initially planned for due to NIMBYs objecting to being able to see or hear a train.
They don't deal with that shit in China
'Partly' is doing some heavy lifting there.
Seems to be the thing that the pro-hs2ists are hanging onto now while they continue to ignore the fact that it continues to be an astonishingly poorly implemented scheme with the usual corruption and jobs for the boys pushing costs sky high, not a bridge or tunnel here and there.
A local newspaper Facebook post to me had people up in arms recently as HS2 were installing a cycle bridge across a busy road next to the works. Apparently this bridge was making the costs of HS2 spiral 😂
I mean, if the thing was actually planned well in the first place, then surely bridges and tunnels in areas where people might just not want a train wanging it by might have been something they could have seen coming with a modicum of thinking about it? 🙄
'oh, you mean people don't want that area of ancient woodland flattened?'
They don't deal with that shit in China no. Could that be something to do with a very poor record of leaders giving a toss about their citizens and the fact we are absolutely dwarfed by China?
There's a lot of opposition near me to the proposed routes of the Peak Cluster CO2 pipeline that will bring polluting gas from the likes of that Hope cement factory for storage in the empty gas caverns under Liverpool bay
Saw an article about this at the weekend. Maybe people are protesting about it because CCS doesn't actually work at scale, so it's a huge waste of money on a token effort to be green?
It may well work at this scale, for this purpose. When it comes to energy generation more widely it might be a dead loss (that’s my view for sure), but there are industries where it could be key to continuing UK production while reducing impact. Cement, steel, etc.
The thing with NIMBYS is that there isn't that many of them, they just make a lot of noise and so get a lot of attention. In a town of a few hundred thousand you'll get petitions opposing something with 500 names on it, at least half of which only signed as a piece of paper was thrust under their nose when they were shopping.
There are certainly things that should be opposed, but as a country spend an awful lot of time and money appeasing a tiny number of people.
They are proposing building more wind turbines on the other side of the valley from us, alongside the existing wind turbines. The usual suspects are up in arms and objecting to them, despite all the infrastructure already being in place.
The thing is, we live in East Lancashire, not next to Lake Coniston. It's a post-industrial landscape that is covered in disused quarries, mines and derelict buildings. It's a bit late in the day to be clutching your pearls and getting all precious about it. And that's before you get on to what else they'd like there... a gas fired power station, perhaps? Because that's the other option, given our dependency on fossil fuels which now looks even more desperate than ever thanks to Trump
Anyway, I love 'em as I think they enhance the post-industrial landscape. This is the view across the valley when I open my curtains in the morning. Whats not to like?
Yup, I can't imagine how small a percentage a cycle bridge takes up of overall HS2 costs, it must be vanishingly small.
Sounds like they'd do their nut about the temporary bridges that have been installed and other mitigation works taking place for HS2 overall.
The carbon storage pipelines are just pushing the problem onto future generations a bit like nuclear power waste storage. The responsible way would be to investigate methods of removing the problem at source by different production methods or capture at source.
There again, it’s the bigger picture needs looking at not just short term “solutions”.
We've had a few local facebook groups set up in opposition of developments of some of the derelict...no, sorry, greenspaces that were up for development. it's the usual save our somethingorother groups.
some are pretty well organised and thorough, objections based on uncertainties in reports and essentially increasing the level of communication between the local interested individuals and the developers and council to a point where there is lots of information that is distilled and summarised for everyone to see.
Others are less so.
the most recent were two instances. one former council nursery (for plants) and surrounding land including an old football pitch. the buildings were falling down and the pitch hadn't seen a ball for years. It was popular for dog walkers to do circuits and for schoolchildren's drinking den as it was quite overgrown. a huge development was proposed which would have put the land to good use, but the rooftops would also have been visible from the rear of the existing houses.
every single possible rationale was used to object. for removal of greenspace, habitat, public amenity, to noise, pollution, road conditions. I think one of the only properly valid points was that the local schools may not have capacity for a dramatic increase.
trouble is with these cases is that there is no alternative offered. I asked the community group what they would do with the space if the planing was knocked back. there was a lot of could be used for this and that, but not a 'we've thought about doing this over here, having community growing here, recreational ground here etc' no firm ideas, just stuff made up on the spot. in all likelihood, if it was denied, they'd cheer and go back into their homes and it would continue to be as it was. Nothing community led would be done.
eucalyptus
Water hungry and non-native tree at that?
The thing with NIMBYS is that there isn't that many of them, they just make a lot of noise and so get a lot of attention.
See also LTNs - the thing is that there's an increasing body of evidence that they're a good thing - reduced traffic both inside and outside the zone, less noise, better air quality, more walking & cycling, save the NHS money etc. etc.
But every time, there is a small shouty minority making bad faith arguments about taking their elderly granny to buy a fridge, or complaining about not being consulted when they mean not agreed with, and if it's not those, it's tinfoil hat bollocks acquired off the internet about 15 min cities.
If they were just honest about wanting to drive wherever and whenever they like it would be easier to accept. And also to refute.
/rant
NIMBY .. American origins? Subsequently beaten by BANANA … Californian?
(Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody).
Every flood alleviation scheme ever.
Thats not true. I have worked on a fair few where there have been zero issues.
Communication and engagement go a long way.
Fair enough, I don't have direct experience of many.
I lived in the Calder valley for 40 years though and listened to some of the barmpot opposition arguments to desperately needed schemes.