January 10, 2014
Scotland

Fate of Ascog wind cash still unclear

By Craig Borland | The Buteman | 09 January 2014 | www.buteman.co.uk

The fate of £95,000 in public money used to help draw up the doomed plans for three wind turbines at Ascog Farm remains unclear this week.

Scotland’s energy minister, Fergus Ewing, has written to constituency MSP Michael Russell to say that money given to the scheme by the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme will not be written off, as opponents of the scheme had feared and as we reported last month.

But Mr Ewing’s letter refers only to additional cash given to the farm’s owners to provide extra information on noise, landscape and visual assessments to Argyll and Bute Council – not to the sum which, according to Ascog Farm’s own website, “helped us in the expensive business of creating an Environmental Impact Assessment to support the application”.

Mr Ewing says in his letter to Mr Russell: “A CARES loan was approved to cover the additional costs of providing the requested information but this was approved without the write-off option as the panel deemed that any additional costs should be at the applicants’ own expense.”

* More in the January 10 edition of The Buteman – on sale now.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2014/01/10/fate-of-ascog-wind-cash-still-unclear/