There's a lesson to be learned by people trying to protect Culloden from pylons

There they can view the appalling Beauly to Denny line. With almost 20,000 dismissed objectors it can only be described as environmental vandalism. Huge swathes of the Highlands have been destroyed with massive pylons and thick, glistening transmission lines criss-crossing the skyline.

This was built, according to Fergus Ewing, because of wind factories. A tsunami of wind developments have since been proposed along its length and local citizens have battled against multinational giants to protect the environment where they live ever since.

Once-attractive train journeys from Inverness are now spent trying not to look out of the window. The Wester Balblair “substation” in Beauly is impossible to view in its entirety except from the air and still it continues to grow. SSE say it is a “hub” now and more Beauly/Denny size pylon lines will be coming into it. It is a mess, a sci-fi movie set, an alien landscape.

This “beautiful place” has been sacrificed, by the Scottish Government, in the name of an energy source that is only clean and green in the propaganda that promotes it.

A noise abatement notice was served on SSE by Highland Council after the “Beauly Buzz” at Wester Balblair kept residents awake at night and could be heard several miles away. Three years on, the situation is still not resolved and with more lines to be connected things can only get worse. Some poor residents have been reportedly driven to distraction, with one buying a touring caravan so he and his wife could go somewhere quiet to sleep. Glasses of water in bedrooms ripple. Fishermen on the famous River Beauly, that has the heavy noisy transmission lines strung above it, complain of the noise – some say they will never return.

Some living under the lines say it is like having a microwave on in your bedroom at night.

The beauty and tranquillity has gone forever. Culloden – be warned.

Lyndsey Ward

Beauly