Group starts fight for change on wind farms

A GROUP has launched a campaign for a policy change on wind farm applications .

Save Our Hills is mounting a nationwide appeal to persuade decision-makers in local authorities and within government to slow the spread of onshore developments.

The campaigners said while they were supportive of green energy, the time had come to look at alternatives.

Save Our Hills has a steering group of 12 people in south-west Scotland, but said it will now work to expand to other areas, particularly those popular with wind farm developers such as Perth and Kinross and Aberdeenshire.

Iain Milligan, the group’s spokesman, said: “Scotland is in the process of considering what its energy future may look like, and that’s a perfectly reasonable thing for any government to do. But communities, particularly in the south-west, are at saturation point with onshore wind farm development.

“We feel it’s time for other sources to be investigated. People have had enough and will not put up with the further spread of enormous wind farms.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “Assessing the effect on landscape forms a key part of all wind farm applications, and is fully considered together with cultural heritage, economic and community effects.

“Our planning and consenting system ensures local communities have their say and all applications for wind farm developments are subject to consultation with the public and statutory and local bodies, including community councils.”