A PETITION was launched across Wales yesterday calling for a regional referendum on plans for hundreds of wind turbines in the countryside. Mid Wales businessman Dan Mun-ford claimed the industrial wind turbines standing higher than Nelson's Column would blight the landscape of rural Wales. Assembly government consultation on proposals to establish seven strategic sites for windfarms was insufficient, he argued. "This is the point behind the petition campaign. We demand our democratic right to consultation," he said yesterday.. "I'm a moderate man and I believe in renewable energy but when I read more about this I realised it was all about politics not climate change." Mr Munford, a former chair of Mont-gomeryshire Liberal Democrats and latterly a Conservative candidate, said the issue cut through party political lines. "I started this idea in mid Wales but this petition is something that groups across Wales can unite behind. "The Assembly have managed to unite large numbers of people against their proposals because very little public consultation has taken place. "We have to remind Assembly politicians that Wales belongs to people not government and that this referendum is our right," the Welshpool-based director of Insight Research said. Proposals for more wind farms were outlined in the Assembly's new policy guidelines for local authorities, Tan 8. It established seven strategic sites for controversial large-scale windfarms across Wales almost doubling the existing 400 turbines. | 
