Noisy neighbours

SNP MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, Rob Gibson, would like to see the guideline restrictions on noise levels relaxed for individual domestic and business wind turbines as some of his constituents are apparently having difficulty with the planning authorities.

One prospective turbine owner was told that his wind turbine would be too loud so, with the intention of demonstrating to the authorities that it would be no more of an annoyance than background noise, he made some measurements.

During the course of his investigations a hen, proudly announcing to the world that it had just laid an egg, achieved 49 decibels, thus exceeding the upper limit for individual wind turbines by nine decibels.

On the basis that a hen can break this limit Mr Gibson is suggesting to the planners that this demonstrates the need to take a “rational approach” when considering wind turbine noise issues. Rational? Rob Gibson is well known to be blindly in love with wind turbines, and rational thinking plays little part in his mental process concerning the subject as he demonstrated here.

It shows the worrying change in attitude of the SNP towards anyone or anything standing between them and their goals since achieving a majority at the last election. In a recent spat with the Earl of Caithness, Mr Gibson said: “The days of local earls and lords telling the Highlands how it’s going to be are well and truly over.” To this telling statement he might well have added: “The SNP has taken over that role now.”

If this is the standard we can expect from our would-be rulers in an independent Scotland then we should be very careful what we ask for as we might just get it.

Kip Watson

South Sutor

Cromarty, Ross-Shire