Sir – So the CPRE objects to wind turbines on aesthetic grounds (Report, September 3).

Personally, I think they are beautiful — tall, slender, magical; and the wumm-wumm you can sometimes hear is a pleasant sound — much nicer than the roar of distant traffic which you can seldom get away from.

It’s a matter of taste, isn’t it. I believe pylons were also criticised for aesthetic reasons when they were first put up, and defended by a poet: Over the treed upland evenly striding One after one they lift their serious shapes That ring with light . . .

What does the CPRE say about them?

But I do agree with Dr Whall that more research should be done into other renewables. I should have thought Oxford would be a good place for hydro-electricity, with all the streams rushing down the surrounding hills, many of them culverted: I hear them rushing uselessly under the asphalt when they could be spinning small turbines and making electricity for the surrounding houses.

And geo-thermal generation should be possible, given the tremendous heat at the centre of the earth, its huge power sometimes visible in volcanic eruptions. As for the need to reduce consumption of power: somewhere in Germany there is a place where the street lights are normally off. If someone needs them on, she or he dials a certain number on a mobile phone, and they come on for a quarter of an hour, and then go off again. Really clever, that!

Irene Gill, Oxford