Assembly Member, Jenny Rathbone, has urged Welsh people to get behind Awel community co-op Share Offer. Jenny says “This is a fantastic, co-operative way of taking action on climate change in the run up to the UN conference in Paris.

“Awel Co-op is a significant £7.5 million project which is going to lever significant external funding into the Welsh economy. Construction is planned to start in March next year. Now, the Welsh people have the chance to own it, and ensure that all profits go into other renewable and fuel poverty projects via the charity, Awel Aman Tawe.

“I was also delighted to see that Bridgend contractors, Raymond Brown Construction, have won the contract to build the wind farm. Great news for Welsh jobs.”

The two turbines will generate clean energy, and feed all profits back into community projects. The 4.7MW site is on Mynydd y Gwrhyd about 20 miles north of Swansea.

Dan McCallum, who has led the project since it started in 1998 said, “Jenny has been a great supporter of community energy in Wales. We need our politicians to back Welsh-based community energy projects if we are to revive the great tradition of co-operative action in Wales. We also want to make sure Welsh money stays in Wales rather than going to the Chancellor – the only way to do that is to buy co-op shares before November 23rd before he takes away EIS tax relief from community energy projects. We’ve already received £49,000 of investment which is fantastic. But we want to get a minimum of £150k. Investors can claim a 50% tax break.

“We have a track record of delivering this kind of project. The same team put together the Egni solar scheme which raised £171k from a co-op share offer and installed 119kw of pv on 5 community buildings.

“We’d like to acknowledge the funders who’ve helped develop the community wind farm project with us – Welsh Government’s Ynni’r Fro programme and the Robert Owen Community Energy Fund which has been backed by Big Lottery.”