Scottish Government responses to the Committee’s questions were described as “vague” by the Convenor at the last meeting of the Committee on 10 September 2025. We would go further than that and suggest the responses from the Scottish Government have been misleading and designed to waste the committee’s time, as well as our own, by making obscure promises to give consideration to our petition based on the responses to various consultations, such as the November 2024 DESNZ, “ Electricity Infrastructure Consenting in Scotland – Proposals for reforming the consenting processes in Scotland under the Electricity Act 1989”. This confirmed what the public suspected – that democracy is repeatedly, and often irrationally overruled in favour of facilitating political UK and Scottish Government climate targets. The meaningless consultation process is illustrated where overwhelming majority responses to consultation questions were ignored and overruled if those responses did not accord with the political objectives to speed up the consent process for major renewable and network projects, regardless of community and public concerns.
The Summary of Responses to the ‘Investing in Planning Consultation’ showed that raising of the current 50MW threshold, which would allow for greater local decision making, was supported by all respondent categories except the Development, Property & Land Management Sector & Agents and yet still no decision has been made by the Scottish Government on this matter. It is noted that the threshold for determination by Ministers in England is 100MW, despite the average capacity of wind farms there being much less than the average in Scotland of 120MW.
DPEA (Planning and Environmental Appeals Division) is of the opinion that there is unlikely to be a drop in the number of onshore windfarm Public Inquiries being held, following the amendment of the Electricity Act 1989 to speed up the award of consent for renewable projects. DPEA current forecasts are that windfarm and grid application numbers will continue to rise. Many communities and Community Council areas are facing multiple simultaneous and recurrent planning applications and public inquiries for onshore windfarms, grid expansion and the related infrastructure. Communities lack both the knowledge and financial resource to be able to participate effectively in the planning process and it is very obvious that well resourced commercial renewable companies and their extensive supporting professionals exploit these failings and belittle individuals and community concerns. Communities also include individuals with neurodiverse disabilities and these members of the public are particularly disadvantaged and therefore discriminated against, in attempting to participate in the planning process. The Scottish Government purports to seek effective and inclusive public engagement in the planning process; without support for effective public participation, the reality is the complete opposite. There is a real need to support members of the public through the planning process and to protect those individuals from bullying and intimidation in oral proceedings.
It has been suggested by elected representatives and Scottish Government Officials that existing organisations should be able to provide guidance and advocacy , but this is not feasible. Planning Aid Scotland (PAS) is very helpful for general planning queries, but does not specialise in applications under the Electricity Act a and cannot give advocacy support. PAS has offered to refer any community groups seeking legal assistance to the Faculty of Advocates Free Legal Services Unit. Though welcome, that has significant limitations. The Planning Bar is very small. Every application for assistance is screened by an Advocate before it can be advanced for full advice or representation and finding an available counsel is difficult and unlikely to succeed given the amount of time and commitment that an advocate would be required to provide for even one windfarm case.
This petition contains modest and well thought out proposals which would make a small call on the public purse. Its reach, and the consequences of its implementation, would yield disproportionately significant social benefit spread right across Scotland, encouraging fairness, equality and inclusivity. It commands widespread public support as well as cross party parliamentary support. Supporting the Petition’s proposals would be a small step towards levelling the uneven playing field of commercial exploitation of Scotland’s rural landscapes, versus protecting our precious, existing environmental and ecological status quo. Increasing the effective influence of host communities in planning decisions would help to restore the evident erosion of public representation and restore the public’s faith in this current government.
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