Yesterday we received the devastating news that Sanquhar2 windfarm had been consented. Apart from awarding consent, there are no planning conditions or mitigation at all to monitor construction effects on the hydrological environment such as groundwater – which is essential for both public and private water supplies. (Sanquhar 2 turbines border the catchment area for Afton Reservoir used for public water supplies)
Planning conditions are not what they’re cracked up to be anyway. If the local authority decides that non compliance by the developer of critical planning conditions related to water pollution is not important enough to enforce, then monitoring or mitigation simply won’t happen and there is nothing you can do about it.
The Scottish Gov’s Planning Circular 4/1998: the use of conditions in planning permissions is regarded as the yardstick for imposing planning conditions. In 4. it says,”It is essential that the operation of the planning system should command public confidence.”
Do you have confidence in our planning system?
It is unbelievable that there is not a single planning condition for S2 which requires the developer to monitor neighbouring private water supplies or to monitor groundwater (upon which springwater PWS depend). Only fish will get their water monitored! This shows the true disregard for rural people and their environment by this Government. CWL will be so pleased that they won’t have to pay for monitoring and be held liable for providing mitigation to those with affected water supplies.
Meanwhile, at CWL’s Sneddon Law windfarm next to us, which is nearly complete, our Council has failed completely to enforce planning conditions anyway to monitor groundwater during construction – and doesn’t consider this to be a problem (worth enforcing)!
Last month (July), all the PWS being monitored by CWL showed huge spikes in bacteria – including ours which has levels that the World Health Organisation considers a high risk to human health. Just like Sanquhar 2, all these PWS water sources are well outwith SEPA’s prescribed ‘safe’ buffer distances. Of course, because there is no groundwater monitoring, nothing related to construction can be pinned on CWL because there is no proof of causation. This seems a repeat of Whitelee windfarm when our Council failed to enforce water monitoring conditions and four properties lost their water supplies altogether and many others suffered gross bacterial contamination with several people ill.
Scottish Ministers should be ashamed of themselves that they don’t even uphold ‘the precautionary principle’, far less care about the health of rural windfarm neighbours.
Rachel Connor
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