Mike Wade
Twenty years ago, Mike and Elizabeth “Kai” Geldard bought the Crask Inn,
what they consider a little piece of paradise set beside the long,
single-track road between Lairg and Altnaharra.
They have raised their sons here and let their cattle and sheep roam over
2,500 acres, all the while glorying in the landscape around them.
“Walk over to Loch Choire,” said Mrs Geldard, gesturing towards a path
beneath majestic Ben Klibreck.
“If you ever want a walk to look into Shangri-La, you should go up there.”
Now their world is about to change after the decision in October of the
Scottish government to approve the Creag Riabhach wind farm, against the
advice of its own countryside agency, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH).
Within four years, if all goes to plan, 22 turbines will be just around the
curve in the road, their blades looming over the Geldards’ garden.
In the interim, the road itself will become an industrial site, lorries
churning up and down the route from the south, as they deliver materials
and workers to the Altnaharra estate, owned by Jim Gray, the Geldards’
neighbour.
The prospect seems nothing short of horrific for the couple, both in their
sixties.
However, they are at odds with some of the residents of Altnaharra, whose
livelihoods depend on the estate. When he development was raised four years
ago in a meeting at the local school, Mr Geldard said that he was “the only
person that spoke with feeling against it”.
He said that he thought the very name Creag Riabhach was a ruse to conceal
the scale of the venture.
According to Mr Gray, it would have been more honest to have named the
development the central Sutherland wind farm because it represented the
industrialisation of the Northern Highlands.
Community funds generated annually by the wind farm amount to £181,500.
Some have questioned whether the subsidies on which this kind of income
depends will even be availble.
The Geldards have been offered something themselves, but they said that
nothing could compensate what is planned.
“Mike’s much angrier about violation of this glorious, austere landscape,
to line people’s pockets,” Mrs Geldard said.
The couple said, however, that tl are not personally opposed to Grays.
“Jimmy Gray has done many put spirited works,” Mr Geldard said. “He built a
swimming pool for people in Fraserburgh. We get on, this is very reverse of
anything personal”
Others speak up for the wind farm. Jim Johnston of Bettyhill, Strathnaver
and Altnaharra community council said that any disadvantages would be
offset by benefits, both for local people as well as in the wider battle
against climate change.
Mr Johnston is sceptical of the countryside lobby. SNH, he said, was known
locally as “See No Humans” and he said that its arguments about wild land
were misconceived.
“In the real world it is not wild land at all,” Mr Johnston said. “There
are in excess of 100km of land drains in the piece of land on Altnaharra
estate in which it lies.
“It is a landscape modified by man, long, long ago. To someone who knows
nothing about it, it might look wild and barren but it is a consequence of
man’s activities over thousands of years, rather than inherent wildness.”
As for the notion of ruining the view, Mr Johnston said: “The mountain
overshadows any wind farm. You would be looking down on it, not up at it. I
don’t see any problem there.”
The mutual respect between the people on both sides of the argument only
accentuates the pain Mr Geldard said that he felt.
“From my point of view it is purely the aesthetics,” Mr Geldard said. “It
is wicked that anyone would even think about a wind farm here.”
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