26 June 2012
Scotland’s most controversial planning application for a new coal-fired power station at Hunterston in North Ayrshire has been withdrawn.
A surprise announcement late this afternoon by the applicants, Ayrshire Power, has delighted environmentalists, and means that a public inquiry planned for this autumn will now be cancelled.
Ayrshire Power, which is owned by Peel Energy, said it had taken the decision “due to the level of uncertainty surrounding the ability to secure the necessary financial investment to build the power station in the foreseeable economic climate.”
But the proposed power station also provoked over 22,000 objections and was facing an increasingly uphill struggle convincing decision-makers that it was justified or necessary - even with its partial plans to capture and store some its carbon pollution.
"Peel has finally seen sense over the most unpopular planning application ever in Scotland,” said Dr Richard Dixon, the director of WWF Scotland. “With the local community and North Ayrshire Council against it, and no chance of winning the public inquiry, walking away was the only sensible option.”
Dixon argued that Hunterston had always been “the wrong application in the wrong place.” Its plans to capture carbon were no more than a “green fig leaf” to hide behind, he said.
“The Hunterston proposal would have increased Scotland's climate emissions and trashed valuable local wildlife sites. Let's hope a proposal like this never sees the light of day again.”
Aedán Smith, head of planning at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in Scotland, agreed. “This unnecessary and hugely unpopular proposal would have completely destroyed part of a nationally important wildlife site and seriously undermined Scotland’s ambitions to be a world leader on climate change."
WWF and the RSPB were part of a ‘Say No to Hunterston’ alliance that also included the Church of Scotland, Christian Aid, Oxfam and others. They had been planning to fiercely contest the proposed plant at the now-cancelled public inquiry.
In March 2010 the Scottish Parliament voted by 66 votes to 26 to support a motion by the Greens calling on the Scottish government to reject the Hunterston plan. “Ayrshire Power had so far failed to justify the need for a new fossil fuel power station so their climbdown is welcome, if extremely overdue,” said the Green MSP, Patrick Harvie.
“I hope today's U-turn sends a clear signal that the arguments for fossil fuels simply don't stack up, allowing us to pursue Scotland's renewables potential with vigour.”
The withdrawal was also welcomed by the local SNP MSP, Kenny Gibson. “The position of the local community has always been clear – a coal-fired station is neither wanted nor needed,” he said.
“Their inability to fund this unwanted project meant it was dead in the water and no more economically viable than it was environmentally acceptable. I note they say they will consider their future options but I believe we have now seen the last coal-fired proposal at Hunterston.”
According to the Scottish government’s energy minister, Fergus Ewing, this was “a commercial decision”. He stressed that ministers still strongly supported carbon capture and storage, and saw a role for “new and emerging clean fossil fuel technologies as part of a broad electricity mix.”
Ayrshire Power’s project director, Muir Miller, insisted that the company had had “a strong case” and could have won at the public inquiry. But he added: “We cannot proceed with the significant risk that the current power station design and fuel mix could not be funded and built in the necessary timetable following the grant of consent.”
He was still convinced that a coal-fired station at Hunterston, combined with carbon capture was a good idea. “We still believe that new coal-fired power stations fitted with carbon capture and storage will play an important part in plugging the energy gap until alternative sources of low carbon energy can replace fossil fuels,” he said.
“Hunterston remains an ideal location for such a power station. However, the timing of the economic slowdown and funding uncertainty have not worked in our favour. We will now take some time to consider our options and determine under what circumstances we will revisit our proposals."
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