How SNP's rejection of Loch Lomond Flamingo Land reveals their hypocrisy over windfarms
Rural campaigners want windfarm planning decisions to take the ‘cumulative effect’ of such developments into account, which was a factor in the rejection of Flamingo Land’s scheme
Too long ago than I care to remember, there was a Glasgow schools boathouse on Loch Lomond, just outside Balloch, to which Mrs McLure the jolly physics teacher accompanied a small gang of us on the train every Wednesday in the summer term for dinghy sailing.
One or two genuine sailors knew how to pilot the things but several of us were there to sail to Inchmurrin island for a cheeky underage pint at the pub by the jetty. The boathouse has long gone, but with Balloch railway station right on the lochside and an overgrown site once part of an industrial complex featuring gravel pits and a silk drying and finishing factory, it seems a grand location for a holiday complex so more than a few schoolboys can enjoy what Loch Lomond has to offer.
But the nimbys and Greens have had their way. Nothing to do with an impending election of course, but SNP ministers this week upended their own planning reporter’s decision to grant permission to the Flamingo Land theme parks operator for the £40 million Lomond Banks resort on the site.
There’s nothing wrong with nimbyism when there’s good reason to object, but in light of other controversial decisions, the justification for rejecting Lomond Banks was intriguing.
‘Cumulative effect’ on ‘natural heritage’
As well as theoretical flood risk and an undefined potential loss of ancient woodland, the rejection notice cited “the potential for the cumulative effect of multiple built elements to alter areas used informally for recreation” and conflict with the "aim of conserving and enhancing the natural and cultural heritage of the area".
On virtually every other criteria, the minister agreed it would bring significant benefit to the local economy, but blocked it anyway.
For argument’s sake, let’s imagine this was an application for a wind farm in a historic area of natural beauty, opposed by the vast major of people in the area. But there is no need to imagine, because barely a month goes by without a controversial application being approved despite the same arguments against and new plans lodged with the full encouragement of a Scottish Government unflinchingly committed to the cause of net-zero emissions.
Perhaps if Lomond Banks was to be powered by eight 200-metre turbines, with any excess electricity wired into the National Grid, the application would have, well, sailed through.
That might sound facetious, but that’s the implication of what a rather tetchy Gillian Martin MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and the Environment, told a gathering of community council representatives from across Scotland at a round-table discussion in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday.
Be fair to local communities
The delegates came to urge the SNP to pause further consents for onshore energy projects to allow for the production of a proper national energy plan, and new planning policies which take current grid capacity and existing consents fully into account, which seems eminently reasonable and sensible. They were not nimbys, they insisted, just seeking fairness to communities to balance the interests of Big Energy.
But Ms Martin was clear there would be no such pause. What was needed, she claimed, was more consultation so communities could better understand the benefits of new renewable projects on their doorsteps. The inference was clear too; that communities didn’t really understand what was good for them, but she did, and as they just needed better explanations she would set up a forum to do just that.
“There will be change in Scotland and I want to make sure there are positive outcomes,” she said. “I want communities to get a fair share of the rewards and I want communities to have the option of owning a stake.”
She spoke about compulsory community benefit and sought assistance to establish what better engagement and better community benefit would look like, while not accepting that, for places already ringed by turbines, enough might just be enough. Cumulative effect on areas used for recreation? Impact on natural and cultural heritage? No, concerns in rural areas were because “they have not had these developments in the past”.
Not quasi-fascists
Patronising wasn’t in it, as if they had straw growing from their ears, rather than the highly intelligent and well-informed group that they were. The portents weren’t great from the start, as Ms Martin had given a somewhat ill-judged interview to The National newspaper in which she attempted to frame opposition to renewable energy projects as the product of a “far-right narrative”. So these people weren’t just thick yokels, they were quasi-fascists as well.
And when predictable groans rose from the floor as the condescension grew, her sulky response was to say she had appeared at the meeting “in good faith,” as if they should be grateful she had managed to take the lift to the committee room to deliver a half-hour lecture, or that engaging with people affected by government decisions isn’t her job. That this might not go down well with people who had travelled from Shetland, Sutherland, Iona and Stranraer seemed not to occur to her.
Ms Martin’s approach was less for net-zero emissions, but more zero tolerance of objection. A moratorium was, she said, “not a sustainable position” because it could cost thousands of jobs, something which clearly didn’t apply to the 200 jobs which now won’t be created at Lomond Banks, or indeed to 550 employees facing redundancy when Torness power station is decommissioned in 2030 because of the SNP’s ideological opposition to nuclear energy.
Everything is politics, wrote Thomas Mann, and for better or worse that includes decisions affecting Scotland’s landscape, from majestic Munros to the Bonny Banks. It’s naïve or cynical to argue otherwise, and to think there's five more years of this to come. Can someone sail me to Inchmurrin until it’s all over?
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