Unmasked: the millionaire landowner set to make millions from wind farm

from Sunday Herald, 06 September 2009

A landowner worth £237 million with a chequered past is set to make a killing from hosting one of Scotland’s most controversial wind farms, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

Christopher Moran, a self-made financier from London with links to the Conservative Party, owns the 40,000-acre Glenfiddich and Cabrach estate on Speyside south of Dufftown. A plan to build 59 wind turbines on the estate is due to be considered by Moray Council at the end of this month.

Moran has been reprimanded for business misconduct in the past, and his estate has one of the worst records for wildlife crime in Scotland. Yet now he stands to make more than £20 million from the wind farm over the next 25 years.

The revelation has provoked an angry response from national campaign groups and local residents. They accuse Moran of having “his nose deep in the renewables trough” and of neglecting his estate.

Moran hit the headlines in 2006, when it was reported that he was one of the donors to whom the Conservative party had returned millions of pounds in an attempt to keep their identities secret.

It emerged that in 1982 he was expelled from Lloyd’s of London for “discreditable conduct”. Four years later he was censured by the Stock Exchange, and in 1992 he was fined $2 million in New York for insider dealing.

Yet, according to the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List, he is now worth £237 million, £48 million more than in 2007. As well as the Glenfiddich estate, he owns Crosby Hall, a 30-bedroom Tudor mansion on the banks of the Thames in Chelsea.

According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), between 1992 and 2006 Glenfiddich was the scene of numerous breaches of the laws aimed at protecting wildlife.

In just five months during 1998 a joint investigation by the RSPB and the police recorded ten incidents on the estate. The estate’s gamekeepers were successfully prosecuted for wildlife crime offences in 1998 and again in 2006.

The wind farm, known as Dorenell, is being developed by the Dutch company, Infinergy. It has been opposed by a powerful coalition of local businesses, including two whisky distilleries, William Grant & Sons and Glenfarclas, as well as the famed shortbread makers, Walkers of Aberlour.

The Cairngorm National Park Authority has also strongly objected to the development, which is 2.2 kilometres outside the park boundary. It is concerned about the wind farm’s impact on the landscape and the dangers it poses to eagles.

“Christopher Moran and wind farms deserve each other,” said Dave Morris, the director of Ramblers Scotland, which campaigns against large onshore wind developments.

“Too many landowners have their noses deep into the renewables trough and their backsides pointing towards Scotland’s wild and magnificent scenery,” he said.

“Getting planning approval for a massive wind farm it is like winning the lottery, every year. The public money available from renewable energy developments keeps landowners like Moran in the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed.”

Morris argued that there were far better ways of spending money to save the environment. But he added: “Ministers continue to touch their forelocks to Scotland’s landowners and keep the gravy train speeding down the track.”

Robert McHugh, who runs a holiday cottage business near to the proposed wind farm, accused Moran of having neglected the buildings on his estate. The wind farm would not attract people to the area, he claimed.

“I don't think that the landowner really cares that much,” McHugh said. “Mr Moran, in my opinion, seems to have forgotten, or chosen to ignore, the fact that we do not own the land, we are merely custodians for future generations.”

Moran did not response to requests for comments last week. But the developer, Infinergy, argued that the Dorenell wind farm would bring substantial benefits to the local community.

The company has promised to set up a fund to provide £354,000 a year for local projects over 25 years. It will also establish a visitor centre and improve access to the estate, it said.

“The wind farm and other initiatives will provide up to six full-time jobs in the immediate vicinity and the estate has agreed to release and upgrade a number of houses to accommodate these workers locally,” said Infinergy’s managing director, Esbjorn Wilmar.

“The wind farm will create many opportunities to enhance local tourism, strengthen the local community and economy and improve wildlife habitats on the wider Glenfiddich estate. The total value of the benefits over the anticipated 25-year lifetime of the project will be over £10 million.”

Comments

[sally]

Dutch owned Infinergy and the Estate will share an estimated £525 Million over 25 years in public subsidy payments.Infinergy partner Koop Duurzame Energie (KDE) is part of the Koop Group tainted for its role at the centre of a multimillion pound construction industry price fixing scam.
Moran and KDE are basically in bed together to rake as much money as they can out of british government subsidies.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spottiewattie17/sets/72157604864017461/

The link to the above photo set of the Cabrach is a study in total dereliction, Moran's legacy to the area.

[Stuart]

Building a wind farm often comes down to one thing- who owns the land. In this country we still have the situation where small numbers of very wealthy people own large parts of land. And as far as planning goes, if the landowner wants to build something, then he can if it meets the policies of the local authorities.

So ultimately, if people feel so strongly about what is built on a lot of land, there has to be accountability through taxation. A land value tax would mean the landowner would have be taxed on the value of his land- which if its a wind farm, is quite a lot!

[James Mackenzie]

The solution to the real problem here looks like community buy-out of the land. But we will need clean energy somewhere, however much Dave Morris may wish to oppose that. I wonder what his views are on nuclear.

Also, tackling climate change is also about being custodians for future generations. You can demolish a wind farm once built, if you don't need it anymore, but you can't just roll back the CO2 from coal plants.

It's a shame there weren't any pro-wind voices in here apart from the company. Ho hum.

[David Swan]

The land owners should have the land taken from them.
Why should they have ridiculous amounts of the wealth. It is obscene, they portray themselves as Christians but the large majority of them are ignorant what gives them the right. It is history. They say that there forefathers' swords were longer and sharper. That's how they got the land. Well if that is the case, I will fight them for it now, man to man. The right to the land that belonged to the people that were murdered by their land-grabbing forefathers. Shame on them.