In the upper valleys, beyond the dams and the reservoirs the stream meanders slowly through the moorland, just as it has for eons of time. The Buzzards and Red Kites mew softly in the sky high above and the only other sound is the wind in the grasses and the burble of the stream over stones. Once, before the dams, the whole of this area was unspoilt wilderness with a few hill farms. Should we accept the rape of the land again? Only this time, instead of creating a comparatively benign and picturesque series of lakes, the ridges above the lakes would be littered with great towers of flailing metal.

Jenny Keal.