Lasting legacy of power line decision

Published on Thursday 7 January 2010 20:11

All administrations are defined by the big decisions they make that shape the country for years to come. This Scottish Government's legacy could well be its approval of the Beauly-Denny line (your report, 6 January). Future generations will be left with a giant pylon line that scars our landscapes, yet wasn't necessary.

Beauly-Denny is yesterday's solution to tomorrow's problem. Scotland could meet its renewable energy targets without the line. The present system can cope with the onshore wind and hydro power in the planning system and the existing east coast route can be upgraded to meet future onshore demand.

As marine renewables become a significant power source in the North of Scotland, sub-sea cables will be the preferred means of meeting future demand in the South.

The Scottish Government has ignored calls to reopen the planning inquiry in the light of this and other new evidence, reinforcing a sense of democratic deficit and raising disturbing prospects for all our environments.

JOHN HUTCHISON, Chairman, John Muir Trust; JOHN MAYHEW, Director, Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland; KATE MAVOR, Chief executive, National Trust for Scotland; CHRIS TOWNSEND, President, Mountaineering Council of Scotland; DENNIS CANAVAN, Convener, Ramblers Scotland; DR ROB MCMORRAN, Co-ordinator, Scottish Wild Land Group

Scottish and Southern Energy's proposed Beauly to Denny power line would be a Stalinist blight on Scotland's most beautiful and accessible scenery.

Despite SSE's claims that all this is being done in the name of "green" energy, the truth is that there are a range of credible and less intrusive alternatives: burying the cable; laying sub-sea cables down the east or west coast; or an alternative pylon routing via the Aberdeenshire coastal plain. The only downside is that these options would involve SSE (or the government) stumping up a little more cash.

SSE is trying to do things on the cheap, and is using "green" arguments to disguise this. In doing so, it will damage Scotland's most prized asset – its beautiful countryside.

KAREN CAMPBELL-RODDIS

Pont Crescent

Dunblane, Perthshire

The Beauly-Denny line

is the most significant grid infrastructure project in a generation, and will allow Scotland's vast renewable energy potential to be harnessed, transmitted and boosted, helping support the Scottish Government's target to meet 50 per cent of Scotland's energy needs from renewable sources by 2020, as well as cutting carbon emissions by 42 per cent by the same date.

Scotland has the potential to become a major player in renewable energy, and this announcement will give us the transmission capacity to carry green energy over the coming years, unlocking Scotland's vast renewable energy potential.

ALAN SIMPSON

Canning Street

Edinburgh

There is another way to deal with the Beauly-Denny debacle. In the wake of Copenhagen's expensive conclusion that "there are no targets for carbon cuts and no agreement on a legally binding treaty", we could dump the whole idea and go local, with micro hydro, tidal, heat and power and gasification to provide local communities with power and jobs, not foreign imports and the offshoring of the real profits.

Reopen all the coalfields of Scotland and burn coal in an environmentally compatible way.

DR DAVID BELLAMY

Mill House

Bedburn, County Durham

The immediate environment and tourism are not the biggest problem. Is the Beauly-Denny line likely to be obsolete almost as soon as it is complete; no more than a 20th-century concept floundering in the 21st century? Over the next ten years the technology of transmission will have moved on, probably out of recognition, and Scotland, as usual, will be left with the bleak debris of prosaic journeyman thinking and the industrial detritus of outmoded technology that we cannot afford to scrap, although no doubt someone in Scottish Heritage will award the pylons an A-listing to ensure they are never pulled down.

JOHN S WARREN

Tulipan Court

Callander, Perthshire

This whole debacle has been an insult to our intelligence and a waste of money. SSE has already been awarded its costs (about 6 million) for its involvement in the public inquiry yet it is the company that will be making most of the money from the upgrade. No mention of the 18,000 objectors or the local authorities involved being awarded their costs. The Beauly-Denny upgrade is only required in order to allow more wind farms to be connected to the grid, and it is no coincidence that SSE is heavily involved in the wind farm industry.

In 2008, renewable energy cost the UK consumer 3 million a day in subsidies and this figure is set treble in the next five years, a disgrace when you consider that at least 45 per cent of the Scottish population are suffering from fuel poverty.

BOB GRAHAM

Highlands Against Windfarms

Craigsview

Inchberry, Moray

If tourists, almost all ferried in by polluting vehicles, are put off by the pylons, then surely, in environmental terms, this is a win-win situation of less pollution and green energy transmission, amounting to a greener country all round.

ANGUS MACMILLAN

Meikle Boturich

near Balloch, Dunbartonshire