October 17, 2013
Scotland

Borders council dealing with a new windfarm bid every week

Peeblesshire News | 16 October 2013 | www.peeblesshirenews.com

Statistics from Scottish Borders Council have revealed that they are now dealing with over one application every single week for a new windfarm.

Over the last 18 months 77 bids have been made to place wind turbines in the Borders, averaging out at just over one every week.

It comes as the government continue their drive to site as many windfarms as possible to meet their energy targets which aim to have 100% renewable energy by 2020. This is often at the expense of local communities, who often are against turbines being sited in their area but are overruled.

Local MSP John Lamont said: “Many communities in the Borders know first-hand about the problems we’ve experienced with industrial windfarms in our region.

“Ever since the government started this drive to site as many windfarms as possible across Scotland, our countryside has been seen as a target for potential developers.

“This has seen floods of applications made to the council’s planning department, and these statistics show that they’re having to deal with more than one every week. This not only takes up a lot of time of planning officials, but also costs the council a lot of money to deal with.

“This strain is undoubtedly harming other aspects of the work the council does, and it simply cannot be allowed to continue. When many of the applications that are turned down by the council are subsequently waved through by the government in Holyrood, it raises questions about why they even bother at all.”


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/10/17/borders-council-dealing-with-a-new-windfarm-bid-every-week/