POLICE were called to a recent wind farm information session at Rye Park, after it got out of hand.
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The Community Information Day was held on September 22 at the Rye Park Memorial Hall.
Wind farm proponents Trustpower have accused local wind farm protestors of shameful behaviour at the event, including violence and theft of personal information.
Trustpower also ran a series of newspaper advertisements throughout the region stating that such: “abusive behaviour will not be tolerated.”
Trustpower said a sign-in list, on which people entered their contact details for more information, was stolen from the meeting.
But opponents of the Rye Park Wind Farm proposal are defending their actions at the meeting, saying the presence of security guards got them offside from the outset.
Rye Park resident Jayne Apps said she was upset at the accusations of abusive behaviour. She said she had arrived at the session and was greeted by security guards.
“They put me on edge straight away.
It was in itself intimidating.
I understand they had previous threats which is why they had the guards, but this had nothing to do with the residents of Rye Park,” Mrs Apps said.
“There were individuals who were upset about not getting the information they were asking for and there were raised voices in the hall. I didn’t see what happened outside.”
Ms Apps described the atmosphere as unsettling but said she did not witness any physicality.
“Out of the 130 submissions in May last year, only eight were positive,” she said.
“They have tried to buy the silence of the community since then by offering neighbouring benefits.
This was in no way a planned protest.”
Ms Apps said if the company was trying to prove it was there for the long haul, instead of causing further “antagonism,” it should consider apologising to the community.
Resident Mark Glover is also angry with Trustpower and denies the imputations of violence and intimidation.
“If anything, Trustpower and Epuron were the ones who were violent and intimidating,” he said.
“I mean I’ve recently had a knee operation, and fellow resident Jim Field is 79-years-old for God’s sake!”
He also hit back at claims by Trustpower that the community supported the proposal.
“It’s clearly a wrong assumption that this community supports the wind farm,” he said.
“Since when has a community ever supported a wind farm development?”
Mr Field, who was reported to have taken hold one of the development officers, Rontheo Van Zyl by the throat, also denied all violence claims.
“I actually shirt-fronted him and had my hand around the back of his head, but I didn’t have him by the throat,” he said.
“If anything the security guards from Trustpower were the ones who were violent towards me.
I had three blokes on me at one stage - one who pushed me from the front and two at the side.
I’m nearly 80 years old! I was telling them ‘There’ll be trouble if you don’t let me go!’”
But Mr Van Zyl previously said the Trustpower staff and consultants were simply there to provide information.
“We had already been subjected to several phone threats of violence and, although we didn’t really anticipate any harassment of this kind, we had engaged two licensed security officers to be in attendance,” he said.
“I must emphasise that at no point did any Trustpower staff or its consultants restrain or take any physical action against the protesters, and they remained calm and did their best not to respond to this outrageous behaviour.”
Trustpower will be holding another community meeting at the Yass Memorial Hall on Friday, October 9 at 7pm.