A short-term halt to wind farm developments in the Borders is being called
for until the impact of existing schemes is fully understood.
Lammermuir Community Council has requested that Scottish ministers consider
the moratorium on new large-scale wind developments affecting the region
and has asked for support from all the Borders community councils.
There are now 336 large-scale turbines operating in the Scottish Borders.
Another 111 have consent, and 255 are at the application stage or awaiting
determination. There are many more scoping proposals. Some community
councils have to respond to as many as five large scale schemes simultaneously.
“The numbers change almost weekly and the impact of turbines across much of
the Scottish Borders landscape is increasingly inescapable,” said Logan
Inglis, Scottish Borders Community Council Network chairman when he wrote
to all community councils.
Lammermuir Community Council chairman Mark Rowley is leading the campaign.
He said: “We invite all community councils across the Scottish Borders and
other concerned bodies to join our request that Scottish ministers grant a
short-term moratorium on determining further windfarm development, until
existing schemes have been determined and the true impacts on the Scottish
Borders can be properly understood.
“The Scottish Borders faces a unique set of circumstances with the
withdrawal of the Eskdalemuir Seismological constraint coinciding with the
introduction of Wild Land status for 19.5% of Scotland’s landmass (a
designation largely denied to the Borders).
“The large extent of existing wind development now subject to extension
proposals, a significant number of unbuilt-but-consented schemes and
ministers now insisting that Special Landscape Areas are ‘likely to be
acceptable’ areas for wind farm development have created a unique situation
for the Scottish Borders.
Mr Rowley concluded: “That unique situation requires proper assessment by
all involved. Only a short-term halt will allow that.”
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