Campaigners challenge Scottish government over renewable energy developments

Windy Standard wind farm, Scotland [credit: RWE.com]

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How many wind turbines is too many? The BBC says: ‘rural community councils claim the [Scottish] countryside is being “industrialised” by renewable energy projects’ – but it’s more a fact than a claim to those living there. Much of the electricity from these areas will go elsewhere, like English towns and cities, via yet to be built power lines further disfiguring the landscapes. Meanwhile politicians waffle about their imaginary climate emergency and strive to push aside local concerns.
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Community leaders from across the rural south have come together to fight the Scottish government’s position on renewable energy developments, says BBC News.

They now plan to join unified appeals from the Highlands and north east for Holyrood to pause all major planning applications.

More than 40 community councils and other organisations from across the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian and South Lanarkshire packed into Jedburgh town Hall for the convention.

The Scottish government denied that communities were being ignored during site specific assessments of renewable energy planning applications.
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From a trickle of wind farm applications in areas like the Borders and the Highlands a decade ago, many rural communities are now facing a flood of development proposals for increasingly higher turbines, battery energy compounds, vast solar parks and new electricity sub stations.
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Almost all rural towns and villages across the South of Scotland are currently either fighting planning applications or already have renewable energy developments on their doorstep.
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Borders MP John Lamont, who was one of the guest speakers at the convention, is backing a unified statement for the South of Scotland being sent to Holyrood.

He said: “While Westminster determines the need under the Electricity Act, it is absolutely the planning process here in Scotland that approves all these applications.

“The power is very much with the Scottish government and I applaud the communities that are saying they have had enough.”

Full article here.
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Image: Windy Standard wind farm, Scotland [credit: RWE.com]