Ben Wyvis, magnet for windfarms?. Photo: Nick Bramhall CC-BY-SA-2.0
Mountaineers fear a prominent munro is becoming a magnet for windfarm developers after a second company announced it was considering building 19 turbines, five months after a different firm withdrew plans for the same mountain.
The Mountaineering Council of Scotland said it was astonished a developer would consider siting a windfarm on the Ben Wyvis special landscape area.
It urged developer PI Renewables to shelve its plans for the southern slopes of the 1,046m (3,432ft) munro, north-west of Dingwall.
Highland Council turned down Falck Renewables’ proposals for turbines on Clach Liath on the slopes of Ben Wyvis earlier this year.
MCofS chief officer David Gibson said: “It appears Ben Wyvis, a superb mountain which welcomes visitors arriving from the south to Inverness and the Moray Firth area, has become an unfortunate magnet for windfarm developers.
“After a long and hard-fought campaign by objectors, Falck Renewables heard the message loud and clear: that the visual impact of a wind farm on this mountain is simply not acceptable.
“They backed down in the face of local and national opposition. We urge PI Renewables to have the wisdom not to proceed.”
MCofS board member Ron Payne, director for landscape and access said: “This is yet another example of an unacceptable wind farm proposal, part of which is to be located in a designated special landscape area, and demonstrates why the Scottish Government must implement planning safeguards which protect Scotland’s superb landscapes from such intrusive developments.
“If PI Renewables insist on pushing this proposal through planning, they can expect to be faced with strong and determined opposition.”
David Steane
05 September 2013Unbelievable that a developer should have the front to attempt another obnoxious wind farm development at this location.
I said the following about the planning application which the first developer subsequently withdrew:
"I strongly object to this application. Wind farms are inefficient, expensive and hugely damaging to the environment. They have no place in the Scottish Highlands. They have no place anywhere. And it is absolutely astonishing that a developer can so blatantly attempt to deface one of Scotland's greatest Munros in such a way. This application MUST be rejected, and with that rejection a message must be sent out to others who attempt to permanently disfigure Scotland's stunning mountain landscape - You Will Fail."
If this second applicant lodges a planning application - and let's sincerely hope they do not - I will be repeating this view, only a little more vociferously.
Truly unbelievable.
Colin Wells
06 September 2013What is unbelievable is the extraordinarily unscrupulous attitude of many of the renewables developers. They purport to be following a Green agenda but its hard to believe that any of them have the best interests of the environment at heart when you see what results.
Unfortunately until the subsidy regime for renewables is changes, it is likely to continue to attract applications to build in totally inappropriate areas from such irresponsible developers.
The potential investment rewards from siphoning off funds directly from the energy consumer are so great that even if opposition is considerable, developers consider it's worth a punt and will keep on trying in the hope that they'll exhaust opponents.
In many ways it's akin to vexatious litigation in a court of law - but until there's an equivalent way for planning authorities to say 'Stop wasting everyone's time, you've been told before', they'll just carry on and on.
The subsidy regime needs to be adjusted from a blanket payment for any development, to one which does not reward badly sited and ecologically damaging schemes. Virtually every single wind farm in the Highlands so far has been disastrous from a landscape and habitat destruction point of view, and many of the new hydros have also been immensely destructive to habitats and wildlife.
It really didn't need to be like this. Given the Scottish Government is keen to stress its environmental credentials with initiatives such as 'The Year of Natural Scotland' they really need to prove there's substance beneath by urgently reforming its approach to renewables planning in sensitive areas such as the Highlands.