Energy betrayal
In the good old days of public ownership, we had a gas board and electricity and coal boards. Their task was to keep the power coming, so they planned ahead and built new power stations as they were needed, and the government simply paid the bill. Everything was fine.
Then Margaret Thatcher thought government could do it cheaper, and that’s when it all started to go wrong, as ministers who didn’t have a clue wouldn’t spend money on energy, and just kicked it down the road until they moved on, and another minister took over, and so on and so on. Nothing got done and then it was privatised, and shareholders and expensive executives ravaged it, until we ended up where we are now. Relying on the weather for our energy. You simply could not make it up.
Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Perth & Kinross
Wind power blow
The SNP government has adopted a manifesto promise of the Green Party. The Greens got eight per cent of the vote. The effects are happening already with numerous applications on the way to doubling Scotland’s wind farms. Only two National Parks and National Landscape areas are to be protected. Public servants are powerless to protect the countryside.
There are many people suffering from illness in Scotland today from Covid and its after-effects, delayed diagnosis and the effects of poverty. I believe there is another new disease: stress from watching one’s country self-harm. I am suffering from it, as are some fellow protectors of the countryside.
Here is just one example of what is happening nationwide. Penicuik Environment Protection Association and the Association to Protect the Environment at Leadburn spent ten years helping Midlothian Council protect the area between the Pentland Hills, Moorfoots and Tweedsmuir from three wind farms. In October 2022, Edinburgh Council voted to bid for the Pentlands to be the new National Park on the strength of this.
Cloich Forest wind farm on the Edinburgh-Peebles route, in full view from the Pentland Hills on government land, was passed in 2016 after a reduction in the height of turbines from 132 metres to 115 metres, following an objection by Scottish Natural Heritage (now NatureScot). A new application at Cloich with turbines 149.5 metres high is being considered close to the extended Pentlands Special Landscape Area and the defeated Auchencorth wind farm.
There is now a pre-application for 18 turbines 190 metres high above Gladhouse Reservoir, near the site of the defeated Mount Lothian wind farm. There is a scoping opinion application for 13 turbines at Leithenwater, 4.6km west of the tourist town of Peebles, bordering Glentress Forest.
I am in despair to see all this beauty now at risk. I can no longer help. Where is the democratic mandate?
Celia Hobbs, Penicuik, Midlothian
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