At last we have a date (10th September) for what will probably be the final Hearing of our Petition to the Scottish Parliament. Everyone and their granny, it seems, was consulted, on more than one occasion.
During the length of time it has taken to receive responses from the Scottish Government, there has been a change of planning policy south of the border. That is irrelevant; the aim of this Petition remains the same – to increase the ability of communities to influence planning decisions for onshore wind farms in Scotland. This should also now be extended to include all renewable, BESS and network projects.
All consultees supported the Petition apart from the Scottish Government who didn’t even know they had the power to raise the 50MW threshold (in order to allow more planning decisions to be made locally) until we told them! and Scottish Renewables who sat on the fence. The Planning and Environmental Appeals Division (DPEA) admitted that “the DPEA position, as you would expect, will be in line with that of the wider Scottish Government in relation to this Petition.”
We are now on the final approach with our last submission having been submitted and letters sent out to all MSPs requesting their support for the Petition in person or in writing.
What we really need now is your help to reinforce this by writing to your own MSPs and urging them to either attend the committee meeting (many will have other engagements) or to send an email to the Committee urging them to refer the Petition for debate.
Everyone has eight MSPs, one constituency MSP and seven regional MSPs. If you don’t know who they are you can find them by entering your post code here You can click on each of their names to send an individual message or you can write one email and copy them all in by using Write to them or if you prefer, compose a new email and put your own email address into the “To” field. Click on Bcc to blind copy them in and enter all (eight) MSP email addresses. They all have the same format eg Joe.Bloggs.msp@parliament.scot
The more emails they receive, the greater the likelihood of them reacting so please do take a few minutes to inform them that you are aware that they have received an email from Scotland Against Spin asking for their support for Petition PE1864, Increase the ability of communities to influence planning decision for onshore windfarms and as one of their constituents you request that they take the time to support it. Please remember to add your name and address.
Please let us know if you receive a response by emailing us at info@scotlandagainstspin.org
The Committee meets at 9.30 am on the 10th September. We realise that it is difficult and expensive to travel to Edinburgh in the middle of the rush hour but we would be delighted to see you if you can make it. You can book a ticket in advance to make sure you get a seat in the committee room.
Many thanks
PS. Please don’t forget to sign the Petition if you haven’t already done so!
The SAS Team
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