TO BOLDLY GO ...JUST NOT IN MY BACKYARD!
IT HAS caused fury among the locals who don’t want space flights launching from their area.
And now the head of a company building rockets for a controversial spaceport in Sutherland has admitted he would ‘probably’ not want it close to his home.
Chris Larmour, of Moraybased aerospace engineering firm, Orbex, has outraged opponents of Britain’s first vertical launch spaceport on the A’Mhoine Peninsula, near Melness, with his comments.
At a space industry event, Mr Larmour said finding a site involved factors including people who lived there and added that ‘acceptability to the local population is quite a tricky thing’. He said: ‘I mean, literally, the spaceport at Sutherland, it’s in the backyard of some people and some people don’t like that. Fair enough, you know, I wouldn’t probably either.’
But he added that ‘you have to look at the bigger picture’ of the project’s importance.
John Williams, chairman of Protect the Mhoine, which is campaigning against Spaceport Sutherland, said at least Mr Larmour was ‘honest’, adding: ‘We have been constantly making the case of the damage this spaceport will do to the area.’
A spokesman for Orbex said: ‘Orbex has always listened to objections and been sensitive to the location.’