MY jaw dropped as I read Rebecca McQuillan’s article (“There’s no time for another fight over power lines”, The Herald, April 6). How can anyone who professes to be “particularly interested in the environment” not be opposed to SSEN’s plans for the Highlands? Why accept at face value what you are told by those with shareholders to keep happy? We should ask the same of the Scottish Government.
The controversial Beauly to Denny line was fought and lost on environmental issues and it actually employed many foreign workers. It now pollutes the Highlands with its huge pylons, thick glistening transmission lines and sprawling 42-acre noisy substation. The notorious Beauly Buzz has plagued the area and residents for years and a noise abatement notice was slapped upon it by Highland Council.
Beauly will be an industrial mess if SSEN has its way. Mary Queen of Scots is reputed to have named the village when she visited in 1564, calling it beau lieu – beautiful place. SSEN will wipe out history with three supersized lines – bigger than the Beauly to Denny – all converging in a quiet crofting community at Fanellan at a new substation the size of 35 professional football pitches. There are also indications that expansion may be necessary in the future.
The consultations have been a joke, with rural communities only discovering in March this year what is going to hit them. They were then given a paltry few weeks to try to comprehend highly technical life-changing information and respond to SSEN. Attempts to get questions answered has been a slow and sometimes impossible affair.
Self-confessed urbanite Ms McQuillan needs to answer some serious questions if she believes this extension infrastructure that will scar the face of the Highlands forever is required, because we haven’t seen the facts or figures from SSEN to say it is. As the consumers who will ultimately be forced to pay for this and Highlanders who will have to live with it we demand answers, not just “we need this”. Our experts say we don’t.
This infrastructure is for thousands more wind turbines and we believe it is being driven by the wind industry. England will not have the infrastructure to take this proposed energy for a decade, so there will be a massive bottleneck and millions more in constraints to turn turbines off. In 10 years England will have more nuclear and offshore wind – they may not even buy Scottish wind.
Spare us the alarmist and patronising rhetoric and give us some indisputable proof that a) wind energy will help change what the climate does and b) SSEN’s plans are even necessary for government targets to be met, because we have looked hard and the evidence is not there.
A public inquiry is essential for democracy and so that professionals can make their case on a need basis, as clearly the environment and communities don’t matter a jot.
Lyndsey Ward, Spokeswoman for Communities B4 Power Companies, Beauly.
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