Who really benefits from the pylons?
Hoorah for Norman McNab’s assertion that we already have too many wind pylons, and more particularly that “sadly many foreign venture capitalists and wealthy landowners are on a win-win ticket while trivial financial benefit and damage is Scotland’s reward” (Letters, October 13).
I would liken the proliferation of wind farms across rural Scotland, and particularly the Highlands, to the clearances. With Orkney, for instance, expecting to propose an array to generate enough electricity to power two million homes, most of the power must be destined for the Central Belt or more probably England, and it is indeed the land owners and energy companies who will reap the main rewards.
Meanwhile, those living in the path of the huge strings of pylons needed to take the power south may get little if any compensation for having their outlooks blighted, their health endangered, their internet connections and tourism businesses disrupted. and the value of their properties sharply reduced.
As England’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves has suggested property owners could be compensated for the proximity of pylons with reduced energy bills. Has she ever lived close to a huge pylon? In a previous house I lived beside a comparatively modest one and it is to be strenuously avoided.
Fiona Robertson, Stirling
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