Scotland's wind farms have no effect on tourism, study finds

Wind farms have had no effect on the number of people employed in Scottish tourism, a study has found.

Wind farms have proved controversial in Scotland. Picture: John Devlin/TSPL

BiGGAR Economics studied 18 wind farm sites and looked at the number of people employed in tourism in the local area before and after they were developed.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump warned that wind farms would “destroy” tourism in Scotland.

However, BiGGAR Economics found that between 2009 and 2013, the level of employment in tourism in Scotland increased by 10.8 per cent during a time when the onshore wind sector was growing rapidly.

In the majority of areas studied (66 per cent), sustainable tourism employment performed better in areas surrounding wind farms than in the wider local authority area.

However Linda Holt, spokeswoman for Scotland Against Spin, decried the study and said: “I had to check it wasn’t 1 April when I saw Biggar Economics claiming to have ‘found that for the majority of cases the tourism sector in the immediate area around the wind farm grew quicker than it did across the local authority area’.”