CNPA slam Glenfiddich wind farm plans
The Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) is to “strongly object” to plans for a 59-turbine wind farm on the Glenfiddich Estate, less than a mile and half from the park boundary.
It is the first time the park planning committee has strengthened a wind farm objection by inserting the word “strongly.”
Now planners are to write to the Scottish Government, detailing a series of concerns raised over the planned siting of Dorenell wind farm, five miles from Dufftown on the headwaters of the Fiddich and Deveron salmon rivers.
They include collision fears for young golden eagles currently foraging around the wind farm site, the visual impact on walkers and the cumulative visual effect of wind farms surrounding the park. The committee also raised concerns over the siting of power lines to service the development.
Alma, a young female golden eagle from Glenfeshie, sponsored by CNPA, has been tracked by satellite in the wind farm area. She was last spotted in The Ladder hills and Glenfiddich on September 28.
Another young eagle has also been spotted in the area, considered prime nesting territory by eagle expert Roy Dennis, from Forres, who tagged Alma.
The visual impact of the 400ft high turbines in an otherwise wild landscape was considered detrimental to walkers in the Ladder Hills.
And the wind farm would also add to the increasing array of existing or proposed wind farms encircling the national park, particularly in the direction of Huntly, according to the committee.
Moray councillors are expected to consider the application from Dutch-owned developer Infinergy, along with three other wind farm applications, at a special meeting in November.
Glenfiddich and Cabrach Estates, site of the planned Dorenell wind farm, are the Highland holiday home of London-based property magnate and financier Christopher Moran.
Mr Moran is rated 347th in the Sunday Times Rich List, with assets of £237 million.
Objectors estimate his 46,000-acre sporting estate will be paid up to £1 million a year for allowing the wind farm to be built on estate land.
In 1997 he upset locals when he refused to sell Moray Council one third of an acre to enlarge the Cabrach burial ground. Three estate cottages were demolished without planning permission in 1999, the same year the estate was branded by the RSPB as the worst in Scotland for wildlife crime, accounting for almost one third of reported poisoning incidents.
Andy Cameron, from SoSMoray, which is fighting the Dorenell plan, said: “We welcome the stance taken by the park authority in recognising that a wind farm near a national park detracts from the whole point of having a national park.”
3 October 2008
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