A personal plea to Highland councillors
Tomorrow the members of the Highland Council planning department will decide on the Allt Duine Windfarm Proposal, an enormous 30-odd turbine scheme that would be situated a few metres from the boundary of the Cairngorms National Park. I had hoped to attend the protest, organised by Save the Monadliath, but work commitments mean that I won’t be able to. Instead, I’ve written to every member of the Planning Committee with what amounts to a personal plea for the Monadh Liath, and the Cairngorms National Park. I’ve copied it below.
Dear Councillor,
Please forgive me for e-mailing you as an individual member of the planning committee. I know you are extremely busy but I would ask you to read through this last minute plea for the Monadh Liath and consider it.
Although separated from the main Cairngorm massif by the A9 the Monadh Liath is also, partly, within the boundaries of the Cairngorms National Park, an area that has become a showcase for the finest of Scotland’s landscapes. Although the planning application lies just outside the Park boundary the new roads into the site and some of the infrastructure will be inside the National Park. The proposed turbines will also be highly visible from inside the Park, perhaps not so clearly from the A9 but most certainly from the high roads and the hills on the other side of the A9, particularly the popular Glen Feshie hills. Since many people who visit the Cairngorms National Park do so to climb to these high points I would contend that this is highly relevant.
We all have different views on how to tackle global warming and how to achieve a good energy mix for the future but no matter your views surely we don’t want to surround our greatest landscape treasures with industrial-sized turbines, thousands of tons of concrete to hold them in place and a network of bulldozed tracks to service them? There may be a place for wind turbines in the Scottish highlands but surely it is not a few metres from those areas we have set aside as an area worthy of National Park status?
If planning permission is granted for this development it will undoubtedly set a precedent for other developers to ring-fence our National Parks with turbines. I would contend that would be a disaster for Scotland and its tourism industry, something that would never be allowed to happen in other countries of the world and something that would bring shame on Scotland, the place of birth of John Muir, the internationally acclaimed father of the National Park movement.
Please, I would urge you to object strongly to this development at your meeting tomorrow. Thank you for your time.
yours sincerely,
Cameron McNeish
author and broadcaster, and resident of the Cairngorms National Park