In our last newsletter, John Mackay (author of Scotland’s Beauty at Risk) took a look at the shortcomings of the currently available data sets on turbine numbers in Scotland. Having seen the inability/unwillingness of the Scottish Government to provide accurate data on how widespread wind turbine developments are, and failings by the industry to provide an accurate map, we felt the need to provide this data, gathered via user submitted reports.
So our webmaster James has teamed up with Tim Harrison, who you may remember was developing a new website last autumn (details will be published soon), designed to tackle this problem. Between them, they have developed a new digital mapping facility – Windmap – that seeks to locate and map wind farm developments across Scotland, from operational turbines to those still in the planning system. The site uses a simple interface to allow anyone to submit details about a wind farm in their local area, with the ability to add further information, such as images and video, as well as highlighting the location of the turbine or wind farm.
We need your help!
For the map to work, we need all our Supporters to submit reports of known wind turbine developments in their area, whether still in the planning system, or currently in operation.
We hope that by participating in this online project, you will all help make this map grow to show how much of Scotland’s landmass is under threat from wind farm developments, and just how much of the country has already been blighted by inappropriate developments.
We would like to thank the volunteers that have previously tested the site and submitted known applications and developments, allowing us to make a few tweaks and improvements along the way. So… if you have any developments in your area, or applications pending, please list them on the map to help give others a clearer picture of the rampant destruction of Scotland.
All data collected is publicly displayed and users have the ability to download this data for other mapping applications. We can also use the site to highlight news from your campaigns, so if you have a website with an active RSS feed, please send us the URL to your feed, and we will add it to the site, sharing your news with our site visitors.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated, and if anyone encounters any problems, or has suggestions to improve the mapping features, please let us know, so that we can improve it even further.
So go on, give Windmap a go and help to create a full map of Scotland’s turbine landscape.
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