Crofters go to court to block island wind farm

CROFTERS hoping to block plans for a large island wind farm are set to go head-to-head with energy giant EDF in the Scottish Land Court.

The French firm hopes to be granted permission to develop on historic grazing land near Stornoway on Lewis.

If the bid is successful, it would let EDF push on with proposals for 36 turbines.

But more than 100 islanders from four affected townships have submitted objections to the proposals.

They hope to persuade the court to block EDF’s plans – and in a separate bid have submitted their own application to build a 21-turbine, community-owned wind farm.

Legal teams for both sides will present their cases over two days of preliminary hearings in Stornoway next month.

EDF, acting under the subsidiary Lewis wind Power (LWP), has said crofters will receive compensation payments.

But Lewis resident and campaigner Rhoda Mackenzie said a communityowned wind farm meant residents would benefit from a bigger slice of the profits.

She added: ‘we are doing this for the benefit of the western Isles. It’s our land. It’s quite emotional. To think every square

‘It’s our land. It’s quite emotional’

inch of this ground was precious to the people here – for grazings, for peat – and it’s being taken off them.’

Lwp project manager will Collins said: ‘eighty per cent of those who were entitled to object raised no objection. It is simply not the case that anybody is having their land “taken off them”.

‘The wind farm would be located across a number of common grazings and we are required to obtain approval from the Land Court in order to protect the interests of the crofting community.

‘LWP’s application to the Land Court provides for payments to crofters in recognition of the limited impact on access to a small proportion of the overall grazings and the court’s role will be to assess the fairness of the package.’

The crofters have been battling the wind farm proposals since they were announced eight years ago. They claim the consultation by community landlord the Stornoway Trust, which resulted in LWP being granted a 25-year lease, was not adequate. This is denied by the trust.