Scottish judges have found against crofting groups seeking to build their own community wind farms with a combined capacity of 105MW on crofting land in place of EDF and Wood’s proposed Stornoway wind farm on the Isle of Lewis.
The Sandwickhill North Street; Melbost and Branahuie; Sandwick and Sandwick Eaststreet and Aignish common grazing committees have 21 turbines between them at various stages of planning.
They lost an appeal at the Court of Session over whether they had rights to build the schemes which would conflict with joint venture Lewis Wind Power’s proposed up-to-196MW development.
LWP already has a lease agreement in place with landlord the Stornoway Trust, and judges sided with earlier decisions by the Crofting Commission and Scottish Land Court that found the community groups’ proposals could not be approved as they would be to the detriment of the landlord’s valid interests.
Judges found this Section 50B(2) of the 1993 Crofter’s Act, which precludes this, would apply.
In Scots law crofting tenants have specific customary rights, mainly for grazing and peat cutting, which are not affected by the clause.
LWP has planning consent for 36 145-metre machines at the site but an optimised application for 35 turbines, 25 of them at 180 metres and 10 at 156 metres, is currently in planning.
It is also awaiting approval from the Scottish Land Court to build the scheme on crofting land but that case has been on hold awaiting the outcome of crofting groups’ appeal.
Construction is also likely to be dependent on Ofgem’s approval of a new 450MW or 600MW interconnector to the Western Isles.
SSEN Proposals were rejected last year after the Stornoway wind farm, the largest proposed on the islands, failed to win a Contract for Difference.
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