The owner of a hotel situated on a turbine delivery route on the north coast has said they had no option but to allow tree felling to go ahead on their land.
SSE said it had undertaken “appropriate environmental mitigation” and conducted surveys over 18 months in the run-up to the works taking place.
But Reay resident David Craig and Thurso and Northwest Caithness councillor Matthew Reiss hit out earlier this week at the “irony” of so many mature trees being felled in the name of reaching net zero. Mr Craig also raised concerns over bat habitats being blocked up in the woodland.
Now, Nick Dent, the owner of Forss House Hotel, explained that they were left between a rock and a hard place when they were first made aware of the plans.
He said that the business has a responsible approach to the environment and is in favour of renewable power, but that negotiations with SSE were relatively minimal, with only a handful of meetings before the firm issued a series of compulsory purchase orders along the line of the route
“SSE took a pretty aggressive approach of going down the route of issuing a compulsory purchase order,” Mr Dent told the John O’Groat Journal. “I can understand why, because, if I said ‘no’, I shouldn’t be able to hold to ransom the green energy agenda for the country.
“We recognise that and hence we’ve not been difficult at all. I said, yeah, in principle we’re supportive of this, but we want minimal impact to our businesses, which I’m sure everyone does. We want minimal impact to the environment.” https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/we-were-left-with-no-choice-forss-hotel-owner-says-tree-393722/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNMYmZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHvn8AIWlyvD7N4qJmUrOGnx7fKIQi6O_Y1ZoeoXJLEPnLRabmHEiuYCB-r4Y_aem__6BfInWZ-WWMcYGpZ_JC8w
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