IAN Blackford’s excitedly-trumpeted “Roadmap for a Scottish Green industrial Strategy” (“Ian Blackford: Roadmap for a green industrial future for Scotland”, heraldscotland, July 14) flies in the face of what he said before he was elected. It is simply going to help Big Energy industrialise the Highlands against the will of many of his constituents and he would be well advised to remember what he wrote to me in 2015 before his election when trying to convince me that voting for him would be a good idea.
I had written to him regarding my concern at what was already the proliferation of industrial wind turbines.
Mr Blackford replied: “My duty is to the constituents and is to represent them. That may cause me some challenges from time to time but that is what I am there for. I am not standing just to be a party mouthpiece. I am too long in the tooth for that anyway! I do believe in what I would call the old-fashioned Highland tradition of representing the people.
“I understand your concerns, indeed I would share your concern for the potential of over-deployment of onshore wind turbines. I do fully subscribe to the desire to move to a low-carbon economy and a desire for an effective mix of sources of energy that will allow us to get there.
“My own preference would be to seek to develop wave and tidal power as an effective and perhaps less controversial supply of green energy alongside our long-standing approach to hydro power. I was struck by the recent public engagement that took place on the Black Isle and a local referendum taking place to determine whether the local community wished to see a wind farm development. In my opinion communities must be central to any proposed developments and must have at the very least a significant input into such decision making.”
The development to which he was referring was firmly rejected by the community.
After his election he reiterated his position to me with: “Everything I said to you earlier I stand by. I want sustainability and clean energy with a reduced carbon footprint but not at any cost. If there is a clearly expressed consensus against any development then I would stand behind the community interest. My priority is to stand up for people here in my constituency.”
Nothing Mr Blackford said indicated that rural communities would be swamped, with his help, by Government-backed Big Energy and that their voices would be drowned out by the virtue-signalling green army committing them to life engulfed in concrete and steel for the benefit of others far away and not directly impacted.
It’s time politicians realised that what they say to us matters. This is not a game, it is about the health and happiness of their constituents. We do not forget easily what these extraordinarily-well-paid (by us) individuals have pledged to do and what they actually end up doing.
Lyndsey Ward, Spokeswoman for Communities B4 power Companies, Beauly.
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