Saunton Sands campaign group recreate Pink Floyd album cover

BBC News

01-06-2025

A campaign group against plans to bring an electricity cable from an offshore wind farm onshore at a Devon beach have staged a Pink Floyd-inspired demonstration.White Cross offshore wind farm's plans at Saunton Sands - where the rock band shot the cover for its 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason - were approved by North Devon Council on 7 May, despite more than 1,800 objections. Founder of Save Our Sands, Helen Cooper, held the demonstration on Sunday morning. She said: "If this can be approved in this area, nowhere is safe."North Devon councillors were won over by the developers' argument the project would create new jobs and bring renewable energy to the region.
'Bitterly disappointed'
White Cross offshore wind farm wants to put seven floating turbines about 30 miles (52km) off the north Devon coast and plans to bring a power cable onshore at Saunton Sands, then under Braunton Burrows and across the Taw Estuary to connect to a new electricity substation.Ms Cooper said she was "bitterly disappointed but not surprised" after plans were approved.She said the idea for the demonstration came after the council's planning meeting, in which she said she thought the council had its own "momentary lapse of reason to have approved" the plans.When plans were approved, Al Rayner, the project director for White Cross, promised his company would "inject £153m into the local economy" and it was an "enormous" opportunity.
Objectors at the planning meeting cited concerns about the impact on tourism, on the environment and about high numbers of heavy goods vehicles.About 100 members of the public came to the meeting with the vast majority against the plans, while leading figures from business and education spoke in favour of the application.The Pink Floyd album artwork depicts dozens of beds with metal frames stretching out far into the distance on the beach, with a man sitting on one bed holding a mirror.Members of the campaign group raised about £895 in less than 24 hours to fund the demonstration, Ms Cooper said.
"We've been really overwhelmed by the support," she added. "It's to highlight the fact that we feel... we have been silenced."What we're trying to do is highlight the fact that we really need people to value this area a lot more."It's a very precious environment. "We feel if this can be approved in this area, nowhere is safe, nowhere in the UK, nowhere in the world."Ms Cooper said the campaign group had not been set up against the wind farm or the cable itself, but it was against the cable route.
She added: "Our beauty, our ecology, our environment is so very special, not just in North Devon, and that doesn't seem to be given the sort of respect it deserves."The BBC has asked North Devon Council for comment.