‘Boils on our country’s face’

SIR, – The Goodalls (P&J, September 24) came to the Loch Ness area to hunt monster turbines and were, apparently, disappointed not to see more.

I would say please come back in a year or so when more of those approved will probably have been constructed.

If they had also walked in the hills, as so many visitors do, instead of turbine spotting from their car, they should have been shocked at the devastation already wreaked on places like the Monadliaths.

Highland campaigners fight to stop as many as they can and constantly warn of what the Scottish Government is allowing to happen. Industrial turbines continue, with increasing frequency, to pop up like boils on the face of our country along with their required pylon lines, access tracks and substations. There are still over 500 turbines approved or in the planning process within about 20 miles of Loch Ness. Developers continue, despite the ending of subsidies, trying to win approval for their often despised schemes. The community veto has all but stopped onshore development in England. As the Scottish Government refuses to empower its own people in the same way, relentless wind developers are still plaguing rural communities here, costing them years of stress and huge expense. Without the dedication of antiwind campaigners, future visitors could well be asking why we had let the multinational industrial wind speculators destroy our iconic landscapes even more than they have already. Lyndsey Ward, Beauly,

Inverness-shire.