Billionaire’s battle to ground rocket launch
Tycoon in plea to ministers over spaceport
SCOTLAND’S richest man has made a last-ditch bid to ground the UK’s first vertical-launch spaceport.
Billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen’s company has written to the Scottish Government asking it to call in the Space Hub Sutherland scheme.
The company wants Ministers to consider the Melness project alongside Scotland’s two other planned rocket sites, in Shetland and the Outer Hebrides, warning of a possible legal challenge.
The move by Wildland Ltd, which owns estates near the planned Sutherland hub, comes just days before Ministers are to decide whether to intervene, which could lead to a public inquiry.
Highland Council granted permission for the spaceport on June 26, but the Scottish Government has 28 days from when it was notified to decide to call in the £17.3million project.
In a document submitted to Holyrood by Wildland Ltd, planning expert Ian Kelly insisted the application should be considered together with the other spaceports for consideration at a public inquiry ‘in order that the respective merits of each potentially competing application can be fully and properly understood’.
The report added: ‘Wildland Ltd are adjoining landowners and development investors with a relevant and material interest arising from the likely significant adverse effects on their interests, including the significant adverse effects on the Kyle of Tongue National Scenic Area, that would arise if this planning application for the vertical launch facility at A’Mhoine was to be granted.
‘It should be stressed that the fundamental basis of the objection to the above planning application is to the proposed location of the project rather than being to the principle of a space port at an appropriate location in Scotland on the islands or on the mainland.
‘Wildland Ltd’s position is that this application, and other potentially competing vertical launch space port applications/proposals, is and are the clearest examples of a case or cases in which the Scottish Government should rightly be involved.
‘The selection of a vertical launch space port facility in Scotland requires careful and fully informed decision making.
‘There will be significant environmental impacts associated with the development of a site which is not viable.
‘In summary, the only method by which this application can be properly considered, in light of the flaws identified in the process to date, and particularly in the context of the potential alternative sites for a vertical launch space port facility in Scotland, is for Ministers to call in the present application and the other space port applications.’ Danish businessman Mr Povlsen is Scotland’s largest private landowner’
The 47-year-old, who runs clothing empire Bestseller and has a 26 per cent stake in the fashion retailer Asos, is worth an estimated £4.73billion.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) wants to build the satellite launch site on peatland on the A’Mhoine peninsula, near Tongue, but council officials have said launches should be limited to 12 per year.
HIE said by 2024 the space port would support 177 jobs across Scotland – 139 in the Highlands.