You can easily move to a more suitable landscape. Unfortunately these wind farms are there for life, well my life time at least, and cannot be moved.

The Braes of Doune Wind Farm is just an ugly blot on the landscape. The views heading into the Trossachs were quite appealing and I could appreciate why Stirling was the Gateway to the Highlands. In future Stirling will be the Gateway to the Highland Windfarms. What a disaster!!!!

Chris, I looked through the pages you linked to. I don't think I saw any mention of a plan. It was more like a pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces which aren't fitting together.

No offence intended. In particular the MCoS responses looked very professional. But are these defensive strategies working?

The letter you linked on the SWLG website started out promisingly with "Herald calling for a national strategy for protecting Scotland’s wild areas", but the letter was really just a bit of a rant - "Scotland’s landscape will be pillaged again" - "As the taxpayer...".

At least he did say "Clearly, we require a national strategy to protect our vanishing wild country.....", but unfortunately didn't give us any clues as to what that stategy might be.

So come on Mr President, come up with a strategy and we'll all rally round. You need mass public support to sway the gov. All these policy documents, responses etc are excellent stuff, but we members of the public find all that stuff a bit of a yawn. What we want is a clearly laid out plan that we can easily understand and which tackles the issue head on in a sensible way.

John

John, "jigsaw puzzle pieces which aren't fitting together" is an apt description. Some co-ordination would be valuable. This has happened with the Beauly-Denny Landscape Group - a coalition of the MCoS, Ramblers, NTS, JMT, SWLG and the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland (on whose site I found another interesting document - this is probably better than any of those I posted earlier). The BDLG came out of Scottish Environment LINK. It would be good if it could continue after the B-D enquiry report is published. As to mass public support, there were 17,000 objections to B-D, which is an astonishingly high number.

Here's the press release the MCoS put out recently on B-D.

And one from the JMT in which one of the BDLG's expert witnesses calls for a national energy strategy.

The various conservation groups do appear in the media frequently in Scotland and anyone interested should know what we think. Often it seems we are repeating ourselves over and over again.

As to a plan, the problem is the time required to produce one. The MCoS Access and Conservation Officer is snowed under with work. I will suggest to the Access and Conservation Committee that we consider this. It's also something I would hope the BDLG might look at once the public enquiry report is out.

Thanks Chris.

The APRS link is interesting.

"APRS considers that priority should be given to the preparation of locational strategies by all planning authorities before more wind farm developments are approved. In preparing such strategies planning authorities should take account of the map drawn up by SNH that provides positive guidance on which parts of Scotland’s landscape are of varying degrees of sensitivity to wind farm development. The map should be employed as a first point of reference by developers and authorities in determining where wind farms may or may not be acceptable."

The Map.

A good start.

John

Certainly a good starting point. I don't agree with SNH's map however. I think the areas of high and medium sensitivity are much higher. It's not just the impact of a wind farm on the ground but also the visual impact and the destruction of any sense of wildness arising from this.

to reply to hillwalker the breas of doune site was a better site than some of the wilder areas.It is in the central belt where the electricity is needed if you have to put them somewhere why not here

Personally I think they are fitting into the area and once people get used to seeing them they can actually be quite nice when they are all working together. I feel a lot more at ease looking at them than looking at Longannet power station or Grangemouth oil refinery

Chris, I'm not sure what you mean by "I don't agree with SNH's map however. I think the areas of high and medium sensitivity are much higher".

Do you mean the map isn't suitable as a plan for windfarm location, or that their designations of sensitive areas aren't correct? As far as I can see the map is just a map of sensitive areas made up of four other maps:

Map 1 - Designated landscape and recreational interests
Map 2 - Non-designated landscape and recreational interests
Map 3 - Designated biodiversity and earth science interests
Map 4 - Non-designated biodiversity and earth science interests

It's not a suggested windfarm location map, but it is a good map on which to base a windfarm map. A margin needs drawing around the sensitive areas and windfarms excluded from the sensitive areas and margins. The width of the margin would depend on the type of the sensitive area, the visibility from the sensitive area , including range (higher viewpoint, wider margin - but the terrain of the margin might block the view and allow a narrower margin) and backdrop (if a windfarm is visible but Inverness is behind it for instance) etc etc There might need to be two or three different margins to cope with different height structures.

In a joined up world the resulting map could be used with a windspeed map to adjust the margins here and there. Margins developed in such a mechanical way could well have varying value, and if a margin of low value happened to have a high windspeed it could be traded for a valuable area that had slipped through the net.

You and I know that a blanket "no" just isn't going to work. That battle's already been lost, and nothing we've learned so far encourages us to think that the "no" policy is going to work in the future. So, yes the map is a compromise, but it's a compromise structured to give people some of what they want rather than a compromise based on luck.

John

Whilst we're on the subject, as well as trying to contain windfarms within certain areas, I think that from a visibilty point of view it's better to have large windfarms rather than several small windfarms. If national policy is to have x GW of onshore windpower, then it's better to concentrate this in as few areas as possible. I think a few large windfarms are less visible than a large number of small windfarms.

The Clyde valley windfarm will have 152 turbines. The windfarm will be visible over quite a large area, but if those turbines were spaced evenly over Scotland's 30420 square miles each turbine would occupy 200 sq miles, a square of land 14 x 14 miles. If on average turbines were visible up to six miles away, a turbine would be visible in half of Scotland. If Scotland were flat, and if you could see the turbines at ten miles you would be able to see a turbine everywhere in Scotland. And this is just the Clyde Valley turbines.

Why not simply keep all powerstations on industrial sites?


Is there vested interests here? Are some landowners keen on windpower just so they can sell/lease what they consider unprofitable land?

"Why not simply keep all powerstations on industrial sites?"

It's not windy enough in urban areas.


"Is there vested interests here? Are some landowners keen on windpower just so they can sell/lease what they consider unprofitable land?"

Yes, I should think it's by far the greatest consideration for most of them, but I'd be happy to be proved wrong. But what's the alternative?* Does it make any difference what the motives are?

John

* I suppose one alternative would be for those who value the land as it is to buy it and not build windfarms.