Fury at wind farms finally fuels a review

MINISTERS have ordered a review of wind farm guidelines following warnings from senior officials that the "unplanned proliferation" of the controversial power generators could damage Scotland’s landscape.

Documents obtained by Scotland on Sunday reveal that leading environment advisers told the Executive that some parts of the countryside were in danger of being over-run by a forest of turbines.

The documents, released under Freedom of Information legislation, show serious concerns were raised by the Executive’s own advisers last year that an unplanned wind power boom could cause long-lasting damage to the environment and put rare species of birds, mammals and plants at risk.

The Executive then ordered a review of planning guidelines to start later this year. Under present guidelines, some councils have been bombarded with wind farm applications from developers who can expect to make millions of pounds from each successful project.

The "wind rush" has sparked angry protests from communities across Scotland who fear that scenic areas popular with tourists will be ruined.

The Executive wants renewable power to provide 40% of Scotland’s electricity by 2020 to meet international agreements on tackling climate change. Developers have been promised lucrative public subsidies through a government-backed "Renewables Obligation" scheme to build a chain of up to 70 wind farms across Scotland.

But ministers have resisted drawing up a national strategy on wind farm location, allowing developers to target certain areas often against the wishes of local populations. Although it agreed to a review in December, it was not announced to the Scottish parliament until January, and then in the form of largely ignored statement by Deputy Enterprise Minister Allan Wilson.

The documents seen by Scotland on Sunday reveal that Scottish Natural Heritage, the body which advises the Executive on environmental issues, last year expressed serious concerns about the impact of a large number of individual wind farms and its own ability to cope with a deluge of applications from developers. The agency had to hire five extra staff to deal with the workload.

In a briefing paper prepared in November, Bill Band, the agency’s national strategy officer, said it continued to be a "concern to SNH that the Renewables Obligation, while highly successful at stimulating developer interest in renewables, has led to such an unplanned proliferation of exploration of wind farm sites."

Then at the first meeting of the Executive’s Environmental Advisory Forum for Renewable Energy in December, members, including SNH and local councils, expressed alarm that "renewable energy targets were being met entirely by onshore wind farms."

But although Executive officials revealed a review was now planned, they warned it would take up to two years.

Band told Scotland on Sunday: "We [SNH] are concerned about the market-led approach on the location of wind farms. We have over 500 proposals for them around Scotland and in some areas it is a bit of a guddle with small ones alongside larger ones."

SNH officials have serious concerns about a wind farm site on a peat bog at Whitelee, south of Glasgow, because of a threat to black grouse populations. The turbines and the access roads needed to service them also threaten the only site in Scotland in which a rare liverwort has been recorded.

Plans by ScottishPower to restore parts of the site after use are also unacceptable, says SNH, creating a "permanent unattractive focus." ScottishPower has also come under fire for planning to fell 38 100-year-old beech trees at Black Law in South Lanarkshire to build an anemometer mast to gauge wind speeds, the first step in choosing a site for a wind farm.

An Executive spokeswoman confirmed that a review of the planning guideline covering wind farms would begin later this year. "The members of the environmental forum have provided the Executive with detailed comments on the issues they consider need to be addressed," she said. "These comments, including on further strategic guidance, are currently being considered very carefully. The Executive is committed to commencing a review this year and expects to discuss the most appropriate way forward with the forum in June."

Views of Scotland, the umbrella group for anti-wind farm protest groups, said: "Ministers got us into this mess and without a strategic energy review it is by no means clear who is going to get us out of it."

Ian Thornton-Kemsley, a land agent with Strutt and Parker specialising in wind farm planning, said: "Quite frankly this is shutting the stable door long after the horse has bolted. A review that concludes in two years’ time will do little to stop the huge number of wind farm applications already in the pipeline."