Wind developers’ ‘huff and puff ’

SIR, – Your two stories on windfarms included a report of how SSE had accepted £50,000 costs from the John Muir Trust which sadly failed to stop the appalling 67-turbine Stronelairg windfarm above Loch Ness after the energy giant appealed against the judicial review that had stopped it in its tracks.

SSE says it will donate the charity’s money to the South Loch Ness Trail project, demonstrating it didn’t actually need to take it from the worthy organisation in the first place.

As there are more than 500 turbines constructed, approved or proposed in the hills around Loch Ness, why not rename the trail Nessie’s Turbine Tours?

The second story was regarding Druim Ba and included Cnoc an Eas. In 2012 Druim Ba had a 23-turbine proposal refused. If it gets approval for the ten turbines it wants now, how swiftly will an application for an extension follow?

Both areas where these windfarms are proposed have “No scope for medium or large scale turbines” stated very clearly in the new Onshore Wind Energy Supplementary Guidance. No ifs, no buts – no scope. The Adopted OWESG has development plan status and the landscape capacity study conclusion of no scope for medium/large turbines is a policy conclusion.

The wind developers can huff and puff all they like because, despite desperate attempts, they were unable to have these clauses removed during the consultation period. They should have withdrawn when OWESG was adopted and to put Highland Council in a position of having to spend taxpayers’ money to defend their refusals at appeal is simply deplorable.

I hope both communities will fight any approval through the courts and not be put off by the apparent punishment handed out to JMT for daring to try and protect our landscapes from unwanted industrialisation. Lyndsey Ward, Darach

Brae, Beauly