The Shame of Scotland – Its Third World Citizens. – Dr Rachel Connor

For anyone who is still deluded enough to believe the Scottish Government mantra that windfarms are only consented in the right place, then the predicted  environmental impacts  of the consented Sneddon Law ‘Community’windfarm should help to dispel that myth.

Sneddon Law windfarm was consented by East Ayrshire Council, against the advice of Planning Officers in 2012. Local residents had  raised concerns that the 130m high turbines would affect water supplies before consent was awarded – after all many of us had suffered either loss of water supplies altogether, or were ill from contaminated water during the construction of the adjacent Whitelee windfarm. Experts for Community Windpower Ltd eventually provided a detailed private water supply (PWS) risk assessment,  when the planning condition written by East Ayrshire Council to protect those vital water supplies to rural households was appealed.  The developers’ experts identified 22 PWS at significant short and long term risk for pollution or loss of water, as a result of constructing the windfarm,  nine  of which were deemed to be at major risk under environmental impact regulations. One of those, a 200 year old steading, sited within the windfarm development site is at such high risk that that property will be rendered uninhabitable,  with the water supply to be removed from the Council Register. Of the remainder 21 water supplies, there are six farms, including a dairy farm, a country sporting establishment with corporate hospitality and a trout fishery dependent on a clean water supply, and an additional fifteen dependent  households.
You might think that with standard  planning policies in place stating that there should be a deemed refusal if water contamination is likely, that this windfarm would not have been consented. Wrong… this was consented first by the Council in 2012 on the grounds of meeting Scottish Government Energy targets, then it was consented again by the DPEA in 2014 when a noise appeal was upheld and all the conditions were reissued by the DPEA. So with so much at stake for rural households and public health, you might think that another appeal and Hearing in January 2017 might give careful consideration to what is a basic human right – that of a need for adequate supplies of clean drinking water, after all, this is Scotland , not a third world country.
No, you’d be wrong again.
Not only did the Reporter in the January Hearing  find in favour of the developer , he made his decision to uphold the appeal, rewrote the planning condition and retired  – all within 2 weeks of the final documents being submitted for the appeal. Amazing efficiency!

So where does that leave us, the PWS consumers and unfortunate windfarm neighbours?
Well in summary, the Council have stated they cannot enforce most of the condition because of the way the reporter has worded it – they can have no input into monitoring our water supplies,  or ensuring  provision of alternative water supplies should we have a problem in future. SEPA, who were tasked by the Reporter to approve a PWS monitoring plan to be written by the developer, after the Decision to uphold the appeal, have no regulatory responsiblity for PWS  and have no powers to enforce planning conditions. DPEA will take no responsibility for a Reporter’s decision at all and, recommend the only course of action is judicial review of administrative failings of that Decision (if you have lots of money), Scottish Ministers (Paul Wheelhouse MSP and Kevin Stewart MSP) wouldn’t meet with us whilst the  appeal was in progress, but also now refuse to meet us now that a  decision has been taken. (Basically, they won’t meet us – period )
The Reporter put forward the provision of alternative, reliable public water supplies as an option to be provided by the developer before construction commences. Curiously, although CWL will be making millions of pounds of profit, this option has not even been scoped.
Local residents have now been harassed and bullied by this developer for three months to accept third world solutions in the face of signifcant risk to their water supplies, namely, water bowsers which require property alterations to be attached to domestic plumbing for the next 27 years and ‘replacement’ water supplies from  an unproven, untested new borehole sited even closer, within the windfarm development site itself. Apparently though, strangers turning up unannounced on your doorstep, wanting to inspect your plumbing and property is OK by the Council – that is considered to be  ‘consultation’!

The bottom line is that CWL has been able to write its own rules and all our pleas for help have shown that the Scottish Government is not willing and no statutory authority has the power to protect our water supplies – they’re all too busy heading for the hills.

This is a sad day for Scotland when our Government is happy to turn a blind eye to the exploitation of its rural citizens in the name of saving the more distant planet and perhaps more importantly, making a buck or two for its coffers.

Dr Rachel Connor