I WAS interested to read in your article on the approval for an 11-turbine
wind farm on the Kintyre peninsula (“Green light for Kintyre wind farm”,
The Herald, April 16) that the developer, RES (a multi-national with no
local links), says that the scheme is within a “proposed area of search”
and that it will have no significant effect on local people.
In the current local plan there are “preferred areas of search” and this
scheme does not seem to be in one. RES was also told by Scottish Natural
Heritage, at the beginning of the application process, that “SNH do not
consider this to be an appropriate location for wind development of this
scale”.
No significant effect? Our house, 1700 metres from the nearest machine,
will be seriously devalued. Here’s a quote from a major company of
surveyors made about another house close by: “Properties are almost
impossible to sell in areas where planning applications have been lodged
for wind farms and properties for sale in the vicinity of existing wind
farms are challenging to sell and, on the few occasions they are sold, sell
for much less than the values one would normally expect.” Makes a bit of a
nonsense of RES’s statement, I think.
This scheme had no local support but did have substantial local opposition.
It was unanimously rejected by the local council’s planning committee.
In the SNP White Paper Scotland’s Future it says that “decisions currently
taken for Scotland at Westminster will instead be taken by the people of
Scotland”. Can Mr Salmond or some other SNP representative explain how that
fits with decisions which have been taken, unanimously and democratically,
in Argyll & Bute being overridden by Edinburgh?
The proposal will have a terrible effect on tourism, a major local
industry. The site is adjacent to a scenic single-track road between the
ferry terminals for Arran and Islay. A worse introduction to Kintyre is
difficult to imagine.
Argyll & Bute Council is deeply worried about depopulation, and this will
put off anyone thinking of moving here to enjoy the views and the wildlife.
We moved here five years ago for exactly those reasons and now wish very
much that we hadn’t. Leaving would be a major economic disaster for us at a
time of life when rebuilding finances is no longer possible.
When the whole of Scotland is blighted by these devices perhaps we shall
remember that the SNP was the culprit. We certainly shall as we sit in our
unsaleable house in a place where we no longer wish to live.
David Bridge,
Redesdale House,
Skipness,
Tarbert,
Argyll.
4 Comments
Anonymous · April 21, 2014 at 7:35 pm
This tragedy is identical what is happening in our iconic Lake Superior landscape where the wilderness allure of the watershed is the foundation of our wilderness tourism.
Investments, both public and private, are being risked for the puffery of wind energy. Wind provides few sustainable “green” jobs and the subsidized power results in the well-documented rate increases so discouraging to commerce.
In spite of fact that wind is parasitic not an “alternative” energy on the grid the sales pitch rattles on..and on! This force-feeding of information which is contrary to reality should be considered as a form of psychological abuse.
No wonder people are distressed at having symbols of this mistreatment cruelly imposed in such an obtrusive way. The consequences will only worsen with time as the deceit and abuse become more widespread.
The UN’s agenda to depopulate the rural areas and to de-industrialize western developed nations by arbitrarily declaring activities like tourism to be “unsustainable” is too insulting when it is “green” energy which is insupportable!