Windfarm photomontages
Highland Council must be applauded for questioning the accuracy of photomontages presented by windfarm developers (the Press and Journal, July 9)
Lewis residents complained for years about Lewis Wind Power’s misleading photomontages for the now-rejected Lewis windfarm, but the developer insisted its visual representations were accurate, right down to the floating, sylph-like structures, poised like ballet dancers on an otherwise pristine, undisturbed moorland landscape.
Often, these delicate alien impostors looked the same height as the 10-metre electricity poles already on the landscape. Had they been an accurate representation, they would have been 14 times taller, as they were meant to portray giant 140-metre turbines.
In Lewis, we had the Butt-of-Lewis lighthouse against which to judge the visual impact. At 36 metres high, we knew that a 140-metre turbine would be four times higher. It was difficult to visualise what 234 super-lighthouses strewn across our moorland would look like, but they would look nothing like the dainty ballerinas depicted on the montages.
Photographic techniques used in the misleading visual images a developer includes in his planning application, which are not subjected to the same strict regulatory tests as other parts of the application, are a misrepresentation of public interest and could ultimately call into question the validity of some planning consents issued already.
Dina Murray,
49 North Galson,
Lewis.
11 July 2008
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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