April 16, 2013
Scotland

Tom Weir’s widow to head anti-windfarm campaigners

By SCOTT MACNAB | Published on Monday 15 April 2013 | www.scotsman.comBy SCOTT MACNAB | Published on Monday 15 April 2013 | www.scotsman.com

The widow of Scottish outdoors broadcasting giant Tom Weir will head a group of campaigners urging Alex Salmond to stop the spread of windfarms across Scotland during talks with the First Minister tomorrow.

Rhona Weir will hand over a 4,500-strong petition in Bute House after joining forces with Stop Highland Windfarms to organise it.

The SNP government wants to create a green energy revolution in Scotland and wind farms have been at the heart of the initiative. Mr Salmond has said the country’s vast wind levels could help to generate all its electricity needs by the end of the decade.

But residents of rural areas, such as the Highlands, Galloway and Argyll, insist large areas of natural beauty are being scarred by the massive turbines.

Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser, convener of the Scottish Parliament’s energy committee, said the petition outlines well the ‘fears communities have all over Scotland.’

He added: “People do not want to see their treasured countryside plastered with wind turbines, which aren’t even an efficient producer of energy.

“The SNP has consistently ignored these concerns, and pressed ahead with a damaging and poorly thought-out policy.

“This meeting with Mrs Weir gives Alex Salmond another chance to realise the very real impact his Scottish Government’s policy is having across the whole country.”

It emerged earlier this month that the Scottish Government is drawing up plans to protect some of the country’s most remote and beautiful landscapes from development by energy companies.

The new guidance will include maps, drawn up by Scottish Natural Heritage, which will designate about 28 per cent of the country’s landscape as wild land and make it more difficult to secure permission for wind farms.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/04/16/tom-weirs-widow-to-head-anti-windfarm-campaigners/