Borders set to join Highland uprising against renewable energy
‘The natural beauty of our home is beyond price’ is a rallying cry for many in rural areas blighted by wind farms
Down in the Borders, centuries after the warlike locals reived their last, rebellion is in the air. The modern-day dragoons come armed not with sabres and carbines to impose their will, but with the offer of cash for community benefits.
At stake is not land or livestock, but the right to harness the countryside in pursuit of clean energy, and anyone flying into Edinburgh or Glasgow airport or driving down the A68 or M74 can see the impact for themselves, hillsides peppered with wind turbines, some of them up to 200 metres tall to their blade tips.
Promises of community benefits as pay-back for both the inconvenience of construction and the long-term environmental impact of energy companies keen to exploit those Borders hillsides so far unspoilt by turbines and mega-pylons, is dismissed by many as naked bribery.
But, egged on by Scottish and UK governments still chasing impossible net-zero carbon targets in their zeal to power the conurbations with renewable energy generated elsewhere, the march of the generators is seemingly relentless.
PR stunt over ‘zero bill’ homes
UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is determined to press on, with a plan to be launched this month to plough £13 billion into domestic solar energy, batteries and heat pumps over the next four years to create “zero bill” homes, a cripplingly expensive public relations stunt if ever there was one. The Scottish Government will almost certainly feel pressured to do something similar.
In case anyone needs reminding, there is no such thing as a “zero energy bill” when the UK has the second most expensive electricity in Europe, behind Slovenia, because if you don’t pay through your power bill, the taxman will get you.
Apart from so-called constraint payments received by generating companies to switch off when the grid can’t cope – expected to be £1.8bn in 2025 − direct public subsidy, taxpayers’ money, for renewable electricity generation was just short of £12bn in 2024. And as your bills soared further away from zero, subsidy recipients such as Scottish and Southern Energy and Scottish Power recorded profits of £2.4bn and just under £1.2bn in 2024 respectively.
But at least the UK Government accepts the case for nuclear power expansion and a means to generate energy close to power-hungry cities, as it was in the days of coal-fired power stations and gasworks, without the need for miles of towering new grid connections across the countryside because the energy firms won’t fund underground connections.
READ MORE: Swinney warned SNP Cabinet net zero would increase fuel poverty despite renewables bills vow
Dismissed as rural nimbies
Meanwhile, through its new planning guidelines which presume approval for renewable energy infrastructure projects regardless of local opposition, and an out-of-date ideological aversion to nuclear energy, for the SNP it is wind or nothing. Nothing is, of course, not a viable political option so rather than blackouts the SNP expects the lights to stay on through the hypocrisy of imported French nuclear electricity or Norwegian gas.
Until now, objections from those small communities directly affected have been easy to pick off, dismissed as rural nimbies unable to see the bigger picture and individually too few in number to be politically significant. But as the number of snubbed local campaigns has mounted, so too has the realisation that working together to form a movement makes their common cause much more difficult to ignore.
Last August, a packed and at times emotional convention of Highland community councils met in Inverness to let local MSPs and MPs know exactly what they thought of the impact of both governments’ net-zero obsessions, and a fortnight today, January 17, Borders community councils will gather in Jedburgh Town Hall to do the same. Forlorn or otherwise, their hope is that, in an election year, their concerns might be heeded.
READ MORE: Council to consider 'largest renewables project in Highland history' as concerns rise over planning
Energy projects aplenty
And those concerns are extensive to say the least. There are over 20 Borders wind energy projects in the pipeline, and last month The Scotsman published details of the most recent application, for a 13-turbine windfarm at Mid Hill near Hawick.
This has the potential to disrupt the Eskdalemuir “seismic array” monitoring station which is the UK’s contribution to a global system for detecting nuclear weapons testing by the likes of North Korea, and which until now has been protected by an exclusion zone which energy companies want reduced.
Community councils around Hawick are fighting another 13-turbine application at Millmoor Rig, on land owned by the Church of England, while up at Oxton, an eight-turbine plan at Ditcher Law is running into problems because of late alterations to the application after submission.
Then there is the thorny issue of grid connections, with Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN), a subsidiary of Scottish Power, planning four new projects: the major Gala North substation near Lauder; larger pylons for an upgraded line from the substation to Soutra; the new high-capacity 58-miles “cross-border connection” to Newcastleton; and another similar link from Livingston to Lauder.
Irksome altruistic claims
While the substation is under consultation, local people say they have been given very little information about the new connections, supported by the Scottish Information Commissioner which observed that SPEN had tried to “obfuscate” requests for details about the Newcastleton project.
But what irks local people as much as anything is the power companies’ altruistic claims − Scottish Power’s mission statement says it is “committed to an energy model that prioritises the wellbeing of people and the preservation of the planet” – while seemingly ignoring the communities most directly affected by their plans.
“No financial compensation can ever replace what we stand to lose. The natural beauty of our home is beyond price,” the chair of Kiltarlity Community Council near Inverness, Susan Ogston, told the Highlands convention. I suspect more than a few delegates at Jedburgh on the 17th will be in full agreement.
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