from Sunday Herald, 24 October 2004
POWERFUL conservation groups and energy multinationals are about to be pitched into battle over plans for the world’s biggest wind farm on the Isle of Lewis.
In an environmental clash to rival any that Scotland has seen, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Scottish Natural Heritage will be trying to stop British Energy and AMEC erecting 234 massive wind turbines across 40 kilometres of bog around Stornoway.
For the conservationists, the plan is a disaster because it would wreck the habitat of thousands of endangered birds. For the developers, it is a money-spinner that will rejuvenate the local economy and help combat climate change.
It could be a long, fierce and expensive conflict. If Scottish ministers yield to pressure to hold a public inquiry, it could run for years, like the arguments over the superquarry on Harris and the funicular in the Cairngorms.
The Sunday Herald has learned that Lewis Windpower, a joint venture by British Energy and AMEC, is intending to submit a planning application for the £420 million scheme to the Scottish Executive within the next fortnight. The wind farm will be capable of producing a maximum of 700 megawatts of electricity, more than half the output of a modern nuclear power station.
British Energy runs eight nuclear power stations in the UK and has business interests in North America. AMEC is a £4.7 billion energy and industrial services corporation based in London and active in over 40 countries. Their plans for Lewis face opposition because some of the turbines will be sited on peatlands protected under European law. Most of the north end of Lewis has been designated a Special Protection Area (SPA) for birds because it is home to important populations of golden eagles, golden plovers, greenshanks, red-throated divers and dunlins.
“We believe that locating an industrial-scale wind farm in such a fragile and important location is inappropriate, and we will object in the strongest terms,” said the director of RSPB Scotland, Stuart Housden.
“The damage to this important habitat, and the exceptionally large numbers of some of our scarcer breeding birds which depend on it, mean that we have no choice but to fight this development with vigour and determination through the planning process.”
He stressed that the RSPB supported initiatives to generate more energy from renewable sources because they helped reduce climate change, which posed a major threat to wildlife. The organisation had not objected to 90% of the 260 proposed wind farms in Scotland.
“But we see no sense in sanctioning serious environmental damage to Scotland’s natural heritage in efforts to address climate change,” Housden said. “Two wrongs do not make a right.”
The government's conservation agency, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), has not yet formally adopted a position on the Lewis wind farm. But insiders say it will come out against it because it threatens an SPA for birds.
An SNH spokeswoman pointed out that a “significant proportion” of the wind farm would be located in the protected area for waders, divers and eagles. “We will be looking closely at the planning application to determine its likely impact on these species,” she said.
SNH’s role is critical because it will be very difficult for ministers to avoid calling a public inquiry if it objects. The plan is backed by local politicians, Calum MacDonald MP and Alasdair Morrison MSP, and is expected to be supported by the local authority, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar.
The wind farm was also defended by John Price, head of business development for AMEC Wind Energy in Hexham, Northumberland. It would provide over 550 jobs in the Western Isles, and pay crofters and the community £5.5 million a year, he said.
Turbines would cover less than 1% of the SPA, he said, and developers had bent over backwards to accommodate birds by avoiding flightpaths and nesting grounds wherever possible. “Climate change threatens bird species in the Western Isles,” he argued.
“This wind farm will aid the fight against climate change by providing 40% of Scotland’s renewables target for 2010 and help halt the community’s decline.” Price also accused the RSPB of failing to live up to its motto “for birds, for people, for ever”. Its position was really “forget the people, it’s the birds”, he claimed.
The industry body Scottish Renewables urged people not to pre-judge a scheme that wasn’t yet in the planning process. “If we want to achieve significant cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, then the big renewable schemes will be required,” said the organisation’s senior wind energy officer, Jason Ormiston.
“The planning system can strike the right balance between tackling global warming, providing an economic lifeline to people in remote communities and ensuring there is no significant adverse impact on the natural heritage.”
But none of the major environmental groups that normally champion wind power are backing the Lewis proposal. “We are keen to see changes which would make this something we could support,” said a spokesman for Greenpeace.
WWF described the Lewis scheme as far from ideal. “It is disappointing that the developers have done so little to address the concerns expressed by the RSPB,” said WWF Scotland’s head of policy, Dr Richard Dixon. “We are still hoping for a compromise, but will be scrutinising the final application to see if we might find it necessary to object.”
The scheme proposed by British Energy and AMEC is the first of three major wind developments planned for Lewis. A local landowner, Nick Oppenheim, last week launched plans for 33 turbines on his Eishken estate, and Scottish and Southern Energy is set to apply for planning permission for a wind farm at Pairc next year.
