Why Scotland's fightback against plague of windfarms is gathering strength
Scotland now has very few mountains over 3,000ft from which wind turbines are not visible
With the Scottish Government’s Climate Action and Energy Secretary Gillian Martin in the room, the manager of the award-winning Reay Forest Estate wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass.
It would be “perverse”, said Ben Mardall at a Holyrood reception on Thursday evening, to allow a windfarm to be built next to the remote Sutherland estate, the first in the UK to receive the coveted Wildlife Estates gold accreditation, having recorded Europe’s highest ever score for several major projects to promote climate resilience and nature recovery.
Part of the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Estates portfolio, Reay Forest is a true wilderness and home to thriving populations of sea and golden eagles, with an important Atlantic salmon conservation project and a vast programme of reforestation with native species.
But the fragile ecosystem could be under threat from renewable energy developer Galileo Empower which is planning 18 turbines and a battery energy storage system near the neighbouring village of Kinlochbervie. Inevitably it will mean pylon-mounted powerlines to connect the plant to the grid.
Finding a compromise
No doubt Ms Martin will have been briefed, but her response illustrated the Scottish Government’s dilemma. She enthused about how Scotland’s natural heritage was iconic throughout the world and lavished praise on the Reay Estate team, but added that tackling climate change and reducing emissions was of supreme importance. Nothing was more important, she said. So what will it be? Natural heritage or green energy? And if it can be both, how can compromise be reached?
The growing national campaign for a moratorium on further onshore windfarm expansion has just such a compromise at its heart. Representatives from communities across rural Scotland repeatedly say they are not anti-net zero, but tell the same story, of having seen turbines and energy infrastructure spring up around them and their pleas that enough is enough ignored.
For developers and the Scottish Government enough is never enough, and the presence of one development sets a precedent for others, creeping ever closer to communities with energy firms promising local investment which often fails to materialise.
The John Muir Trust says there are now very few Munros, mountains over 3,000ft, from which wind turbines are not visible, and this Tuesday representatives of community councils across rural Scotland, led by Highland councillor Helen Crawford, will attend a round table meeting in the Scottish Parliament to press the case for a pause until a proper national energy policy is in place, and a planning inquiry to assess the cumulative effect of all energy infrastructure developments.
The latter is now more important than ever, because it is the failure to consider all aspects of onshore wind projects that this week led to the Court of Session overturning a Scottish Government decision to approve a controversial windfarm at Wull Muir, an eight-turbine scheme, near picturesque Borders village Heriot and visible for miles around.
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A six-year fight goes on
Wull Muir has been rejected three times in six years, so it might have been assumed the developer, German-owned Energiekontor UK Ltd, would have had its ducks in a row, but three of Scotland’s most senior judges found that the application failed to include the off-site grid connection needed to transmit the power, and therefore the environmental implications hadn’t been properly considered. Now, six years after the first refusal by Scottish Borders Council, the developer will have to submit a new application.
It’s just reward for dogged opposition, particularly for veteran windfarm warrior John Williams, chair of the Heriot Community Council, but it also illustrates the extremes to which opponents must go to ensure a fair hearing.
“The fact that such extensive legal proceedings have been required to block this development causes us grave concern,” he said this week. “With over 600 turbines already built in the Borders and more under review, it is clear that the planning framework is simply not fit for purpose.”
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For Reay Forest, it should mean that Galileo’s plans for Kinlochbervie can’t be considered in isolation from impact of a power line and, in fact, could present an issue for the way the SNP’s National Planning Framework is being applied, which clearly states that “grid capacity should not constrain renewable energy development” and just leaves it to the developers to sort out connections.
Wull Muir has given campaigners hope that the tide can be turned, in stark contrast to the dismay in the Borders which greeted last week’s Scottish Government decision to approve eight 200m-tall turbines at Ditcher Law near Oxton without a public local inquiry, despite solid local opposition including a formal objection from Scottish Borders Council.
Blame was laid at the council’s door because it missed the deadline set by the government’s Energy Consents Unit for responding to its consultation, but as the details of the application changed, the council had only five weeks to respond to the updated plan.
UK’s high electricity prices
Whether the Wull Muir ruling opens up the possibility for a judicial review of Ditcher Law remains to be seen, and needs someone with deep pockets to fund the action. That won’t be a problem for Grosvenor Estates and Galileo will have a fight on its hands at Kinlochbervie if it presses ahead.
But there is an election in May and the industrialisation of the countryside to power the cities with expensive renewable energy – the UK has the highest electricity prices of all nations in the International Energy Agency (IEA), according to the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, at 46 per cent above the median price − will be a major issue in rural constituencies as the community council campaign gathers momentum.
Successful community objections to onshore energy developments are as rare as sea eagle teeth, but maybe there are signs the wind is changing.
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