It’s very heartening to see so many people here today.
The first protest march I ever attended was at this rally last year, and now here I am addressing you all- an honour and promotion indeed!
I had a quiet teenage life; I was not a wild child – no ban the bomb or peace on earth marches for me. I’ve been a pacifist until now!!
But this is a march and a protest with a difference. This is a protest by people who love their country and countryside. It is a protest by families, by people who are established and settled in their way of life, not testosterone fuelled activists wanting to change the world and board oil rigs in the Artic.
We’re not fighting to change the world, or even save the world; we’re fighting for our homes, our way of Life and basic human rights.
We’re fighting against our exploitation by Windfarm companies that are hell bent , not on saving the planet or farming the wind, but on farming the lucrative subsidies paid for by every man and woman in this country.
Mr Salmond, You want Independence for Scotland so that Scotland can determine its own future. We just want to be heard, we just want you to listen, we don’t want to be silenced by Holyrood, whether that’s in or out of the Union.
But we are the little people – not just because everyone is my size! – but because Our Government, our ELECTED representatives , as well as Commercial wind farm Developers think that they can tread us underfoot and – as a small number of rural peasants, that our vote is not important and we don’t matter.
Well Mr Salmond, we do matter, the tide is slowly turning and we are growing in stature, but only because of people like you, who do have a voice and can be bothered to show this Government what rural industrialisation of one of the most spectacular countries in Europe is doing to its landscape, its wildlife and its people.
Every man’s home is his castle, but for most of us it’s not a castle, but a cottage or a house that we call home.
It’s the biggest investment we ever make; our nest egg; our life savings.
But it’s more than that; our homes in the country have treasured memories of rural tranquillity, open outlooks and real community life. Wind turbines blight your home. Wind turbines WILL devalue your home and wind turbines destroy communities.
If a thief stole thousands of pounds from your savings in the bank, would that be OK? Of course not!
If a bank stole our money by investing unwisely and going bust, would the government tolerate it? Of course not, they would bail out the bank! That’s why the UK has been in such an economic mess for the last five years.
But here we have a situation where house owners next to windfarms lose up to a third of the value of their homes, simply because our elected government has encouraged that development at our expense, and without proper regulation. That’s like stealing from our life savings.
Look at my neighbour’s house. (placard) Even allowing for the economic downturn, it has lost £150,000 off its market value. That’s £150,000!
We receive no compensation, no free electricity and our homes may become millstones that we can’t sell.
We are the accepted ‘collateral damage’ of this SNP’s Government’s policies on Renewable Energy, regardless of the cost.
So why is this Government so fixated on Renewable Energy?
After all, Scotland alone ,will make a miniscule contribution to reducing the world’s overall CO2 emissions.
The Government is perhaps the largest land owner in Scotland, with the Scottish Forestry Commission and Scottish Water together owning almost 700,000 Hectares. (That’s a staggering 1.7 million acres to you and me!)
In 2010 Alex Salmond introduced a bill to give Scottish Water statutory authority to partner with other firms to build a wide range of renewable energy projects, such as wind farms, on its 80,000 Hectares.
This is expected to generate over £300 million a year and Scottish Water hope to increase the amount of renewable energy generated on its land by fifteen fold by 2020 – in only seven years’ time. And that doesn’t include the millions of pounds also being reaped by The Scottish Forestry’s 600,000 Hectares which contain some of the largest windfarms in Scotland.
So, could this be the reason why Mr Salmond is fixated on getting as many of those 25 year, water tight contracts for billions of pounds of subsidy revenue as soon as possible, on our, Publicly owned land ?
And despite yesterday’s promise that the SNP will reduce electricity costs by 5%, that lucrative green turbine rent is paid for by every hard pressed electricity consumer in this country.
No wonder windfarms on Government land are so attractive.
No wonder so many windfarm schemes, opposed by Local residents and turned down by local authorities are then approved by the Holyrood Government.
No wonder so many, huge, greater than 50 MW schemes, such as Whitelee are granted directly by our central government.
No wonder this SNP government are now trying to get round Lady Clark’s recent ruling that the consent awarded to so many windfarms could be unlawful.
The Scottish Government must be one of the biggest landowners to directly benefit from windpower.
So where is this money going?
Isn’t it time the British Public knew how much the Government is earning from wind?
Isn’t this the biggest conflict of interest in the Planning process that the UK has ever seen?
And what about the effect on us, the hapless rural peasants living next to these industrial cash cows being farmed by foreign multinationals on our once green and pleasant land?
Well, this is where I live ( T shirt) Literally in the shadow of Whitelee, the largest on shore windfarm in Europe.
Last year one of the Scottish Power managers saw this T shirt and said, “ I know Whitelee, it doesn’t look that that” .
That manager doesn’t live next to Whitelee; we do and I know exactly what it looks and sounds like.
The 215 turbines of the largest onshore windfarm in Europe produce an intrusive pulsating and rumbling noise, have overwhelming visual impact, produce flicker for my neighbours and have substantially devalued our properties .
But on top of that, we now have water problems.
Water – Truly precious; the reason there is life on earth – and we take it for granted!
Most people get their water from Scottish Water and the public supply and think no more of it – apart from their water bills.
But, by Scottish Government calculations, over 75,000 people in Scotland rely on private water supplies.
So, it wouldn’t surprise you to know that industrialising vast tracts of previously unspoilt land has an effect on the water that collects in our reservoirs and private water supplies.
What will surprise you though, is that although the developer must not contaminate your water as a result of building the windfarm, it is usually the same developer who is responsible for monitoring whether they are actually contaminating the water. There has been no independent ‘watchdog’, and SEPA, I’m told, have no jurisdiction over private water supplies.
Incredible isn’t it!
This is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house!!
So for seven years at Whitelee, Scottish Power has been diligently testing our private water supply …not for those mineral contaminants that you might expect to be related to the use of heavy machinery; the excavation of millions of tons of peat and the dumping of thousands of tons of concrete into our water collection area.
No, they just measured levels of bacteria and solids.
But when our water was grossly and persistently contaminated with harmful bacteria to the level where it was like drinking a urinary tract infection, did Scottish Power tell anyone? Did they tell any statutory body that here was a real Public Health risk?
No.
They told us the water was fine and even told a journalist that our water met the statutory requirements.
So has Whitelee windfarm caused contamination of our water- well of course, Scottish Power deny that, but then they don’t even know where our water comes from and didn’t bother to find out before they started building Whitelee – except that there are undoubtedly now turbines, with 40 foot deep foundations , on our water catchment area where there used to be trees and moorland.
So how many other Local authorities in Scotland with windfarm developments are ignorant of what is happening to their local water supplies, both public and private.
How many other people on private water supplies are unknowingly drinking contaminated water?
How many of you are from Aberdeenshire?
Well, I’m sorry to tell you, but Aberdeenshire has the highest concentrations of PWS in Scotland and guess what, one of the highest densities of wind turbines.
And….don’t smirk if you’re on the mains supply either.
So what about the Public water?
In relation to Whitelee, Scottish Power told a journalist that “We have never been conditioned to sample public water supplies”. I suspect that position is true for all windfarm developers, not just Scottish Power.
Doesn’t that fill you with horror – that a developer could industrialise land that belongs to a Public Body,such as Scottish Water and yet had no knowledge or responsibility to know what they were doing to our water?
What we do know, is that during the construction of Whitelee there were unprecedented increased levels of iron and manganese and solid matter within the adjacent public reservoir owned by Scottish Water.
You would think then, that Scottish Water would complain about the adjacent construction activity, especially as they were fined £10,000 by SEPA for related discharges from the water treatment works into local water courses.
But Scottish Water didn’t complain, at least not publically – but remember, at the encouragement of our Government, they are now the landlords for several turbines situated on their land, sorry our, public land, at Whitelee.
Scottish Water, a Public Body and Government controlled organisation, are in receipt of millions of pounds from windfarm developers , not just at Whitelee, but all over Scotland and this is set to substantially increase
So my friends, where does this leave us in our noisy, devalued rural idyll?
We have a Government that is fixated on Renewable Energy and perhaps not just for the altruism of reducing global CO2 by a miniscule amount, but perhaps because, as one of the biggest landlords in Scotland, they will have a guaranteed income of billions of pounds from Renewable Energy for 25 years, paid for from the pockets of every electricity consumer.
We have a Government, who have failed to declare a major conflict of interest and have a flagrant disregard for due process and justice, in that it is the same Government charged with consenting these massive developments, against the wishes of local people and authorities, that also stands to gain massive direct financial benefit by awarding the consent to allow these windfarms to be built.
We have a Government who on the one hand wants every person in Scotland to have a clean, safe supply of drinking water, but who on the other hand, with a Legislative Act, encourages the very Public Authority tasked with doing this, to industrialise our water catchment areas.
And lastly, our Government has derogated responsibility for the monitoring of water pollution and other environmental effects related to windfarm construction to the very developers who stand to gain most by exploiting the rural communities and countryside of Scotland.
This is not a level playing field.
I think it’s time all the facts surrounding this Governments relentless drive for so called green clean energy at any cost are laid bare for public scrutiny.
I think we should be afraid, very afraid.
We are only just beginning to see and understand what some of the long term consequences of this so called green industrialisation will have on our health, our once beautiful country and its fragile sea scape.
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