Fate of Ascog wind cash still unclear – Buteman

By Craig Borland

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.