Shetland’s controversial Viking Energy wind farm plan is being held up as
an example of unfair planning law in Scotland.
The voluntary campaign group Planning Democracy has just petitioned the
Scottish government to change current planning legislation so communities
have the same rights of appeal that developers currently enjoy.
They say that if planning rules were fair, there would have been a full
public local inquiry into the Viking Energy wind farm due to the level of
opposition to the project.
The 103 turbine Viking Energy wind farm was granted planning consent by
Scottish ministers in April 2012, despite thousands of objections from the
public and organisations including Scottish Natural Heritage, RSPB, The
John Muir Trust and Shetland Amenity Trust.
At the time, Scottish energy minister Fergus Ewing said there would be no
public inquiry because Shetland Islands Council had not objected.
However Planning Democracy point out that 21 SIC councillors sat on the
board of Shetland Charitable Trust at the time of the council’s decision
not to object.
They say there was a conflict of interest as the charitable trust is joint
developer of the Viking wind farm, even though the Standards Commission
cleared councillors of breaching the code of conduct.
John Muir Trust’s head of policy Helen McDade said that the SIC had a huge
financial stake in this application through the charitable trust.
“Yet because they failed to object to their own proposal, there was no
obligation on the Scottish government to hold a public local inquiry,” she
said.
“Instead, the Scottish government approved this application – and the
community had no right to appeal.
“Consequently, the biggest wind farm north of the central belt was approved
with zero public scrutiny.”
She pointed out that while developers have the right to object to their
planning applications being refused, objectors have no such right of appeal.
As a result anti-Viking campaigners had to raise tens of thousands of
pounds to take the planning consent to judicial review.
“The huge expense of taking legal advice is unaffordable for most
communities,” she said.
“It is also inadequate as the decision on whether to proceed is further
skewed in favour of developers by the fact that the expense incurred is
only to challenge the legality of the process, and not the rights or wrongs
of the decision itself.”
The outcome of the Supreme Court’s deliberations on an appeal against
Viking’s planning consent is expected in the next few weeks. This should be
the final decision on the proposal to build a 457 megawatt wind farm and
associated interconnector cable at a total cost of around £1.35 billion.
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