Minister barred from harnessing nature to provide his household power

Malcolm Wicks, the recently reinstated Energy minister, has been refused planning permission to install a wind turbine on the roof of his house. The Conservative-run council of Croydon, south London, where he is MP, decided that the turbine would have been too "visible" from the street.

Mr Wicks is the latest politician whose attempts to showcase his green credentials, literally from the rooftops, have failed.

Conservative leader David Cameron, and more recently Gordon Brown, have also fallen foul of planning laws and had their applications rejected.

To rub salt into Mr Wicks's wounds, it is the second time he has tried and failed to erect the £1,500 device. Last summer, his original planning application was approved when the council was still Labour-controlled. But when the turbine came to be installed, engineers decided his roof could not support it in that position and suggested moving it to a different part of the roof, which prompted the second unsuccessful application.

A spokesman for the minister said he had not decided whether to resubmit his application a third time. But the spokesman added Mr Wicks was determined to install some form of renewable source of energy generation in his home whether it was wind or solar power or heat pipes, which drill into the ground to extract heat from the ground. "He will not be blown off course," the spokesman said.

But there is some consolation for the minister. Mr Cameron's attempts to install his own turbine on his Notting Hill home are also stuck in Britain's planning quagmire.

The Conservative leader got planning permission shortly after Mr Wicks last year. But like his Labour rival, his roof could not support the device in the proposed position next to the chimney stack. Mr Cameron moved the turbine to another part of the roof without planning permission where it was also fixed to the ground, but was forced to take it down by the authorities.

A spokesman for the Conservative leader said: "He will resubmit for planning approval. But I'm not sure what stage he's at – the turbine's lying on the garage floor, I think."