Island turbine has never turned a blade

COLL’S controversial 77-metre wind turbine at Gallanach ‘hasn’t turned a blade’ since it was installed more than six months ago.

Councillors Roddy McCuish and Neil MacIntyre were ‘astonished’ to learn at an island surgery last week that the 252ft turbine ‘has never worked’.

‘All that grief and it doesn’t work,’ Councillor McCuish told The Oban

Times. ‘It’s like a big Wicker Man. The islanders want to decommission it.’

In October 2012, islander Neil Smith, director of Gallanach Green apparatus is currently not generating electricity due to a broken generator.

‘The applicant has stated that the repair can be carried out using like for like parts and small apparatus/crane.

‘There is a condition that states that if the wind turbine fails to produce electricity supply to a local grid for a continuous period of 12 months, then it will be deemed to have ceased to be required.

‘ We will continue to monitor the situation.’

Mr Smith could not be contacted for comment. and rock pecker machines began channelling a route through the cliff face.

Council officers served an interdict to halt the work because, they argued, Mr Smith had not been granted planning permission to create a track on his land running 500m from the beach to the turbine site.

Permission was later secured, with conditions agreed by the council, and the turbine was erected several months ago.

A council spokesperson said: ‘The council understands that the Generation Ltd (GGG), was granted planning consent to erect the 252ft turbine at Gallanach Farm, despite more than 100 of the island’s 137 inhabitants signing a petition against the 750kw turbine.

Argyll and Bute Council expected the developer to upgrade the island’s single-track road to transport the giant components.

But on the May bank holiday weekend last year, furious islanders watched in horror as barges landed construction equipment on the pristine white sands of Gallanach beach,