Wind farm policy faces challenge

May 27 2005 Dumfries & Galloway Standard

A MAJOR challenge to a massive wind farm is on the cards.

For the first time councillors are on the verge of digging in their heels over Scottish Executive policy.

They are being urged next week to say no to ScottishPower’s plans for 71 four hundred feet high turbines at Harestanes in Ae Forest.

Instead they want the whole project scaled down to just 39 turbines at the most.

However, all the authority can do is object to the Executive which has the final say.

Nithsdale and Annandale and Eskdale area regulatory committees will join forces on Wednesday to look at the application from CRE Energy.

As well as the turbines, the company is proposing a massive infrastructure of internal roads, three meteorological masts, transformers, site building and eight borrow pits.

Planners are recommending the council objects to the plan; suggests a smaller scale development might be appropriate; calls on the Executive to create a National Location Strategy for wind farms; and encourage the development of a wider range of types of renewable energy generation to counterbalance the focus on wind farms.

The move is likely to come as a shock to ScottishPower especially as Scottish Natural Heritage has just withdrawn its objections to the development.

ScottishPower also announced this week that all its connections to the national grid would be put underground to reduce the impact on the scenery.

But planners point out another wind farm, the Upper Clyde development, is not far away.

And they feel there is no need for both dominating a “substantial tract of the Southern Uplands”.

They are also concerned about the cumulative impact it will have with the Dalswinton Farm, dominating the landscape.

The plan has attracted a massive number of objections, two from as far away as Spain and many from people who live miles away from the region.