May 16, 2013
Scotland

Fewer holiday makers in Carrick

May 16 2013 by Edwin Lawrence | Ayrshire Post | www.ayrshirepost.net

Fewer and fewer people are coming to holiday cottages in the beautiful Stinchar Valley.

And a main factor is the spread of wind turbines in South Carrick.

That’s what a rural resident told a South Ayrshire Council planning committee.

William Hair said: “Bookings are few and far between for holiday cottages – a marked contrast with years past.”

Mr Hair is one of 17 objectors to a solo turbine going up at Little Pinmore Farm.

It would be 60 metres high to the hub, and 84 metres to the blade tip.

But the council is not in a position to decide on a plan by power company E-Gen.

For the company is making an appeal to the Scottish Government citing the council’s ‘failure to give a decision’ – deemed to be a refusal.

But the council is still able to make ‘a statement of observations’ to the government.

And councillors and planners are backing the rural folk who say it would be a blight on their lives.

Senior planner Austin Cooke said the turbine would be in a scenic area very close ‘to an intimate pastoral valley’.

And he showed slides showing nearby major wind farms at Arecleoch and Mark Hill.

Planning committee chairman Peter Convery spoke of the council’s duty as ‘custodians of these areas’.

Councillor Nan McFarlane said the council was not against wind turbines ‘in the right place’ – ‘but not spoiling a scenic landscape’.

Councillors backed their planners’ recommendation to ask the Scottish Government Reporter to dismiss the appeal.

Grounds include the turbine’s visual impact on an environment that already features solo turbines and major wind farms. Also the impact on a ‘sensitive landscape’ which is listed as a ‘regionally significant tourist resource’.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/05/16/fewer-holiday-makers-in-carrick/