Welcome to the land of a thousand turbines
Scotland Against Spin | scotlandagainstspin.org
Linda Holt, spokeswoman of Scotland Against Spin, a national alliance of anti-wind farm campaigners said:
“With a casual stroke of the pen, Fergus Ewing has finished off the Lammermuirs. At 145m the 19 turbines will be the tallest turbines affecting the Scottish Borders, double or near double the scale of many that we are familiar with, and on one of the highest land forms too.
For the first time this takes the number of consented or constructed large-scale turbines affecting the Scottish Borders to over 400 (412). With 90 still at appeal or awaiting determination and over 170+ at application stage, the 500 milestone appears all-but inevitable this year.
The jobs and energy figures are a joke on a day when the total UK wind fleet is running at close to, or less than, 1 GW. The Lammermuirs Special Landscape Area is now no more than a giant industrialised windfarm landscape, and many Lammermuir lovers will be weeping tonight.
The Scottish Government is misusing its powers to drive through a discredited, economically illiterate policy. Mr Ewing and the SNP will pay at the ballot box.”
Cranshaws, Ellemford and Longformacus Community Council chairman Mark Rowley said:
“Both East Lothian and SBC objected on a variety of grounds. The scandal here is not just the devastation that this will cause to a Speacial Landscape Area and an Area of Great Landscape Value but that the Minister has consented this on the basis of historic information. Since this Inquiry sat – June to November 2011 – a whole range of nearby new wind developments have been consented and constructed and the Minister, or his officials, do not appear to have taken the opportunity to assess the landscape in the light of this. For whatever reason the Minister has found this a questionable decision to take – why else would it have sat on Ministerial desks since the beginning of July last year?
Members of the newly formed Borders Network, which includes action groups from both East and West Lothian, know that the real flood of wind turbine applications is only just beginning despite this corner of Scotland already being at saturation point. From consented to scoping, there are over 1000 large scale turbines affecting the region. Welcome to the land of a thousand turbines.”
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/03/02/welcome-to-the-land-of-a-thousand-turbines/