Windfarm protestors plan Glenkens meeting 

A devastated couple are facing the prospect of losing their dream home … for a second time.

Sharon and Bob Goodfellow thought retirement would be idyllic when they built their new home at Crocketford.

But their dreams were shattered by plans for a housing development next door.

Reluctantly the couple sold up and moved to a “wild and beautiful glen” at Lochinvar near Dalry.

Now the nightmare is happening all over again.

Only this time it’s a windfarm that is threatening to disrupt their lives.

According to retired prison officer Bob, turbines from the development could end up just 300 yards from their Lochinvar house.

“We’ll have to wait and see what happens but I think we will have to move again,” said Bob.

“Maybe to the middle of a housing estate!”

The couple’s home nestles below the hill that would site the Loch Hill development which envisages 11 wind turbines standing as tall as 100 metres, along with an anemometer mast, a substation, tracks and borrow pits.

“I’m pretty sick,” Bob said. “We live in a beautiful glen that is going to be destroyed.

“And people say one of the best upland farms in the area is going to be ruined.

“I’m not against windfarms but there are plenty of places they could go without destroying people’s lives.”

Bob retired from the prison service at Devizes in Wiltshire in 2003 and, along with wife Sharon whose parents live near Newton Stewart, decided to move to Scotland.

“We bought the land at Crocketford and apart from the foundations and blocks, we built the house ourselves,” Bob said.

“We did all the interior work, the plumbing, the electrical work and everything else.

“It was our home, our dream home. We had hardly finished the work when we found out about plans to put up houses in the next door field.”

The couple decided to sell up but lost £30,000 on the deal because of the next door development.

“We found this house, an old water treatment plant, and thought no-one would ever build a house next door to us again.

“We could hardly believe it when we had almost finished working on the place when we heard there was going to be a windfarm next door. We live here twenty four seven.

“We love our wild upland home, the vast views, the birds, the remoteness.

“It is our idea of heaven and we want it to stay that way, not just for us but all the people who can come and visit and enjoy what is here.”

According to GLARE (Galloway Landscape and Renewable Energy) people all around Lochinvar are convinced the Glenkens is becoming a virtual “windfarm corridor”.

And on Saturday their fears will be highlighted at an open day at Lochinvar Lodge.

What GLARE terms the “risk of being industrialised by the construction of roads, turbines and all the rest of what constitutes a wind power station on the hills above Loch Ken” will be unveiled to the public.

There will be displays, a chance to chat, walks, activities for children as well as refreshments at no charge on offer between 10.15am and 1pm.

There is a free bus for anyone who has no transport, which will leave the Catstrand, New Galloway, at 9.45 am, the Balmaclellan Shop at 10am, the Dalry Post Office at 10.15am and will return by 1pm.