WITH proposals for windfarm projects generating much public concern, why did the Chancellor give no encouragement to energy saving in his December statement?

The government itself admits that 30 per cent of our energy is wasted, and the Energy Saving Trust has pointed to a range of tax changes that could encourage people to buy energy efficient products such as condensing central heating boilers while deterring purchase of less efficient items.

I am prepared one day to see our hills and moorland covered in windfarms if it will make a real difference to the problem of climate change, but I do not see why our most precious landscapes should be sacrificed until it is clear that the government is taking every possible alternative step to reduce the emission of global warming gases. This it is clearly not doing.

CHRIS DAVIES, Liberal Democrat MEP for the North West.