IT is telling that Susan Law’s Agenda article (“Practicality is key if we want more turbines”, The Herald, October 15) makes no mention of the communities and people who live in the areas “that aren’t the most accessible”. It is however a useful insight into how the factors, landowners and money people view the communities in these areas – they don’t even register in their thought processes. It is an attitude reminiscent of a different era.
The fact that the people who live in places like the Highlands aren’t not even part of her thinking in achieving the “green recovery” is telling and worrying, especially as she is advocating compulsory purchase to further the factors and landowners’ ambition – to save the planet or make more money?
Many of the communities in these far-flung areas care desperately about the environment: the hills and lochs, the blanket peat and moorland, the glens and straths and don’t view wind turbines and associated pylons as an enhancement to this environment. And especially on the scale that is being proposed.
Our community was the first to have an onshore wind farm in the Highlands. We now have five wind farms operating, additionally there is the Strathrory wind farm in planning and three more wind farms being investigated. The new turbines are massive at 180m. We have become a “wind farm sink estate”, and it is happening in other areas of Scotland too. Where we live is now totally dominated by these wind turbines and their associated infrastructure such as pylons. I have to wonder what the long-term future for these fragile communities is if this onslaught continues.
So let’s have a conversation about the “green recovery”, but let’s include the people who are directly effected by the politics. And remember Ms Law’s article is predicated on consumption, but insatiable consumption is exactly why we have a problem with global warming. Energy saving and reducing consumption is more effective and longer lasting and offers a better more sustainable future.
John Edmondson, Strathrusdale, Ross-shire.
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