Latest news with #ChristopherMoran
Daily Mail
18-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
The truth about Britain's taxpayer cash-soaked wind farm industry laid bare in scandalous detail in court papers
The Cabrach and Glenfiddich Estates cover almost 50,000 scenic acres of Morayshire at the north-eastern end of the Grampian Mountains. Owned by Christopher Moran, a colourful Tory donor who made his fortune in the City of London, they take in grouse moors, a salmon river, a pheasant shoot and some of the finest stalking ground in all of Scotland. There are also some 18 tenanted farms, endless estate cottages, and a grand 17-bedroom lodge, which once belonged to the Dukes of Richmond and Gordon and boasts a ping-pong room decorated with oil paintings by Thomas Gainsborough. Moran, who is 77, acquired this pile via two transactions, in 1979 and 1982. A keen shot, he describes his hobbies in Who's Who as 'architecture, opera, art, politics and country pursuits', and once told an interviewer that Cabrach and Glenfiddich gave him 'sanity', saying: 'In London I can work 24 hours a day. But here, I unwind.' Lately, the wealthy laird's perks have been more than just sporting. For recent events have turned his picturesque Highland seat into one of rural Britain's most prolific cash machines. Historically, this was one of the finest unspoiled views in Scotland. But today, the skyline is broken by 59 gargantuan steel turbines of the Dorenell Wind Farm. Each of them stands 126 metres tall and sits on land that has been leased by Moran to the French energy giant EDF. They were installed in 2019, and – assuming the wind is blowing – can feed 177 megawatts of clean, green electricity (enough to power 106,000 homes) into Britain's National Grid. Given the stunning location, its construction was highly controversial. Locals filed around 600 complaints, saying it would despoil the landscape, hurt tourism and provide little tangible economic benefit. EDF argued it would play an essential role in helping Britain meet 'net zero' targets. In an effort to silence critics, they offered to set up a 'Community Benefit Fund' that would distribute some of the profits to charities that help residents. Although an initial planning application was opposed by Moray Council, development was approved on appeal by the Scottish government. That, broadly, is the history of the place. And there's nothing so very unusual about it. Thanks to our deepening political love affair with wind turbines – Energy Secretary Ed Miliband recently unveiled plans to double our onshore wind capacity by 2030 – similar schemes are being rolled out, against local opposition, across the land. Yet there is something that makes Dorenell not just remarkable, but very newsworthy indeed. And it involves the thorny topic of money. First, though, a brief lesson in wind farm economics. In common with all British facilities, Dorenell generates insufficient power to make back the cost of its construction by simply selling electricity on the open market. Instead, its owners receive generous subsidies, paid for by consumers via levies on energy bills, which are supposed to help them to turn a small profit. Supporting the UK's wind, solar and other renewable power in this manner costs the grand total of £25billion a year, according to the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) charity. That's more than £850 for every household and equates to around 40 per cent of the electricity costs you are currently paying every month. So far, so eco-friendly. But what few bill-payers properly understand is where the mountain of cash they shell out each month is ending up. For while Mr Miliband's subsidy system is supposed to help developers wash their face, it's increasingly enriching a class of 'wind farm vultures', who are exploiting the rules to cream off profits at the British public's expense. Energy firms have for years kept bill-payers in the dark about this mounting scandal, filing accounts that (perhaps deliberately) keep the finances of individual projects opaque, and hiding behind NDAs and other confidentiality agreements to conceal how much cash is being diverted to already wealthy landowners via lease payments. All of which leads us back to Dorenell. Because its finances were last week laid bare, in scandalous detail, during a remarkable case at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. The proceedings, which revolved around a contractual dispute, provided an insight into what is going on under the bonnet of Britain's cash-soaked wind farm industry. Take the question of profits. At one point, it emerged that Dorenell Windfarm Limited, the company that operates the whole thing, now makes almost as much money (in some years a whacking £40million) from switching its turbines off as it does from generating green energy. Later, it became clear that the firm makes millions more during these periods of downtime, via a loophole in the subsidy system that allows it to 'trade' the electricity it's not actually producing – more on which later. Take also the question of cash that Christopher Moran, who is already worth £658million, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, is creaming off from all this. Court papers revealed that he's being paid in the region of £10million a year in rent by Dorenall. That's the equivalent of around £170,000 per turbine, per year. What's more, it's ten times more than locals were led to believe he'd earn from the scheme. To quote one disgruntled campaigner, it makes the £2million funnelled to the 'Community Benefit Fund' since 2020 to compensate locals for despoiling their landscape 'look like chicken feed'. Some of the other dizzying numbers cited in the litigation show how the 'green' subsidy regime every Briton is financing has created a perverse property bubble. In effect, Christopher Moran's remote hilltops, which have for centuries only been useful for farming sheep and shooting, have been turned into some of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the country. 'People sometimes wonder why a landowner would want to host a wind farm. The answer, as this court case shows, is they are being offered rents that would tempt a saint,' is how Dr John Constable, director of the REF charity, puts it. 'As a result, the green subsidies that make these high returns possible are now at an unsustainable level.' Constable points out that what happens at Dorenell is likely to be happening across Britain. For this particular wind farm accounts for little more than 1 per cent of the UK's entire onshore capacity. Details of how the public's cash is being splurged are laid bare in an 'opinion' on the litigation that was published by Lord Sandison, one of Scotland's most senior judges, on July 10. It reveals that Moran's company Glenfiddich Wind Limited, which runs his estate's wind farming operations, is suing EDF's operating firm Dorenell Windfarm Limited for 'sums allegedly underpaid' under the terms of its lease. The claim covers a three-year period from 2022 to 2024. During that time, the contract between the two stipulated that Moran's firm would be paid either a 'gross income rent' based on a proportion of revenues generated by the turbines, or a 'minimum annual rent' of £6million, depending on which was higher. In 2022, he received £8,496,981. The following year, the figure was £9,480,725, and in 2024 it reached £10,406,641. To put things another way, Moran made more than £28million by doing very little aside from owning a remote bit of moorland. But at some point, he decided the figure was around £6,196,518 less than it ought to have been under the terms of the contract, and took EDF to court. At the heart of the dispute is an argument over so-called 'constraint payments'. This term describes cash that is paid to wind farms to compensate them for either switching off their turbines, or reducing capacity, when the grid has become too full to take on more electricity. The system is designed to cope with power surges during times of high wind speeds. Initially, it was rarely used. In 2010, the first year of its existence, 'constraint' fees cost consumers £174,000. But as more wind farms have been built in remote areas bottlenecks in the grid have become more commonplace. As a result, upwards of £300million a year is now being spent under the 'constraint' scheme, which has now cost bill-payers the grand total of £1.8billion, according to the REF. What's more, critics believe wind farm operators can sometimes make more, under the rules, by switching off their turbines than from making electricity. This has created a perverse incentive to build new facilities in isolated regions such as Moray, where the strained infrastructure means 'constraint payments' are likely to be more common. Dorenell is a case in point. For according to court papers, in 2023 it received £37million in 'constraint payments', equating to half its gross income of £74million. The following year, the figure was £40million. These sums were then included in figures used to calculate Moran's rent– but Dorenell Windfarm Limited was also making extra cash from shutting down its turbines by exploiting a loophole in the subsidy system via which farms receiving 'constraint payments' are provided with 'credited energy' they can then sell on the open market. A highly-complex trading arrangement then allowed them to make millions in extra profits by selling the 'credited energy' that they'd never actually generated when prices were high. Moran thought that a portion of this extra income ought to have then found its way into his rent payments. EDF disagreed, sparking a contract dispute. In his opinion Lord Sandison appears to have largely sided with Moran, and both sides in the dispute are now considering their next steps. 'The exposure of such scale of financial returns and infighting, all whilst this wind farm development has one of the most derisory community benefit packages in the country, should be subject to the highest level of scrutiny by the Scottish government,' is how Jonathan Christie, the Chief Executive of The Cabrach Trust, a local charity dedicated to regeneration, puts it. Colin Mackenzie, a whisky historian who has holiday lets near the Cabrach and Glenfiddich Estates, describes the roll out of wind turbines across the Highlands as a 'national scandal' saying: 'The figures in the court case are astonishing and make the £2million awarded to local projects since the Community Benefit Fund opened look like chicken feed.' Moran isn't the only one to have smelled a rat about Dorenell's 'constraint payments'. Last year, Ofgem forced the operator to pay £5million into a 'redress fund' after finding that it had charged 'excessive' amounts to switch off turbines under the scheme. To critics, the grubby affair only serves to highlight how energy subsidies represent one of the most regressive wealth transfers in history, funnelling cash from poor people to some of the wealthiest in society. Christopher Moran is perhaps the very last person who might be in need of extra cash. A grammar schoolboy from a modest background, he joined Lloyd's of London in the 1960s as a 17-year-old insurance broker's assistant and within five years had acquired his first million. By the 1990s he had a car collection that extended to three Rolls-Royces and a Lagonda, plus one of largest homes in London: Crosby Hall, a medieval pile in Chelsea that was once home to King Richard III. There was also a beauty queen wife, named Helen, with whom he had two sons before divorcing in the late 1990s, a vast collection of antiques and Old Master paintings, and a contacts book that would see him host everyone from Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and David Cameron, to Prince Harry, Queen Elizabeth, and an array of celebrities at his palatial residence next to the Thames. Life has not been without the occasional scandal. His City career suffered a setback in 1982 when he became the first Lloyd's broker to be expelled in 300 years for 'discreditable conduct'. A few years later, he was censured by the Stock Exchange Council and fined $2million in the US for alleged insider dealing. And in the 2000s, Moran was reported to be one of several individuals the Tories had returned donations to so as to prevent their identities from becoming public under new disclosure rules. In 2018, a newspaper probe found that one of his properties, a serviced apartment block named Chelsea Cloisters, was home to more than 100 prostitutes, earning the building the nickname 'ten floors of whores' (Moran denied having any knowledge of their presence). And in 2023, it emerged that he'd fathered a daughter named Iva via his girlfriend Emily Rae. Not that Moran is running away from controversy. To the horror of locals, he's announced plans to build 22 new wind turbines on his estate via a joint venture with a Canadian company. Given recent revelations at the Court of Sessions, we can assume they will earn lots of money from being switched off. And so the Laird of Cabrach and Glenfiddich will get even richer, Scotland's Highlands will become less beautiful, and you and I will be forced to pay for it.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
San Angelo ISD Bond 2025 proposition passes
SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) — Unofficial results provided by the Tom Green County Elections Office indicate that San Angelo ISD's $397 million Bond 2025 proposal has passed. Citizens took to the polls on May 3 to decide whether the multimillion-dollar bond would pass or fail, four days after the conclusion of early voting. According to unofficial results published by the Tom Green County Elections Office, 5,604 people voted in favor of Bond 2025, while 4,715 people voted against it. San Angelo elects new mayor, runoff for city council in June Unanimously approved by SAISD's Board of Trustees on May 3, the bond proposal sought $397 million from taxpayers to address 'aging facilities at Central High School and Lake View High School as well as other campuses for renovations and additions across the district,' according to the district. Among the projects that would have been funded by the bond were the construction of a new Glenn Middle School campus, the renovation and construction of several facilities in elementary and high school campuses and security improvements. 'Calling for a bond election in May is about more than upgrading buildings,' SAISD Superintendent Christopher Moran said. 'It's a strategic decision to provide students with modern learning spaces while freeing up funds to better support our hardworking teachers and staff.' The bond had an expected financial impact of '$22.72 a month on a home valued at $200,000 in San Angelo ISD.' The district stated that Bond 2025 'would be only the second passed bond in the last 27 years' if it were passed by voters. Check out Concho Valley Homepage's Your Local Election HQ for a look at elections that took place across the Concho Valley. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
SAISD cites reporting error for TEA accountability ratings
SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) — San Angelo ISD has cited an error in reporting as a contributing factor to recently revealed accountability ratings following the Texas Education Agency's assignment of a 'D' to the district and an 'F' to Lake View High School. In a statement issued to district parents, SAISD Superintendent Christopher Moran said that the TEA's 2023 school year accountability ratings were expected to be a 'D' for the district and an 'F' for Lake View High School. The TEA released its ratings on April 24, revealing that the expectations were correct. According to the TEA, 'the A-F accountability system was established in 2017 by the 85th Texas Legislature through House Bill (HB) 22 to provide clear and consistent information on how schools are performing in three key areas: Student Achievement, School Progress and Closing the Gaps.' The system was 'designed to drive continuous improvement' and is used to help 'nsure that all students, regardless of background, have access to a high-quality education that prepares them for success after graduation.' 'The release of 2023 ratings give families a much-needed and long-overdue opportunity to understand how their schools are serving students,' the TEA said. 'The ratings also give districts valuable insights to strengthen instruction, close achievement gaps and support continuous improvement.' SAPD: 'No credible threat' at Lake View HS, despite online claim Moran said in the statement that 'a reporting error' for the 2022-2023 school year 'led to incomplete data being submitted to the TEA.' He specified that 'grade information from Lake View High School for the spring 2022 semester was dropped from our report during the electronic submission process,' resulting in the assigned ratings. 'Had the reporting error not occurred, the district rating would have been a C and Lake View High School would have been a D,' Moran said. Moran stated that the district took precautionary measures after realizing that the error was made. 'Upon discovering the error, the district implemented updated safeguards to include targeted checkpoints for data verification involving multiple departments, which now occur numerous times each year,' Moran said. Moran said that the district is now working to appeal the ratings 'to ensure the district's academic performance is accurately represented,' a process he stated couldn't begin until the ratings were released. 'While this data error is real and important, it does not fully capture the current state of San Angelo ISD,' Moran said. Moran also said that the TEA's rating is reflective of 3-year-old data that the district 'obtained in the Fall of 2023 and used to make immediate changes at the time.' He said SAISD has made 'significant adjustments since the 2022-2023 school year' and has 'focused on academic growth at all campuses.' The TEA also reported that its 2022-2023 school year and 2023-2024 school year ratings were delayed due to 'legal challenges' and that its 2022 ratings, while released, 'were heavily impacted by pandemic-related learning disruptions and a state law that prevented D and F ratings from being issued that year.' In a separate statement issued two days before the TEA released its ratings, Moran said that academic growth could be expected at SAISD in the coming years. 'You should expect to see a significant academic turnaround in San Angelo ISD in the coming years as a result of the work our skilled teachers, academic support and curriculum and instruction department is engaged in,' Moran said. The TEA's ratings for San Angelo ISD's campuses are as follows: Fort Concho Elementary — A Santa Rita Elementary — A Central High School — C San Jacinto Elementary — C Glenn Middle School — C Glenmore Elementary — C Bonham Elementary — C Lamar Elementary — C Reagan Elementary — D Lone Star Middle School — D McGill Elementary — D Lincoln Middle School — D Bowie Elementary — D Bradford Elementary — F Lake View High School — F Belaire Elementary — F Crockett Elementary — F Fannin Elementary — F Goliad Elementary — F Holiman Elementary — F Carver Alternative Learning Center — Not rated To view the TEA's 2023 ratings, visit Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SAISD holds Bond 2025 press conference
For a full recording of the press conference, watch the video in the media player above. SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) — San Angelo ISD officials held a press conference on April 11 to discuss the district's Bond 2025 proposition ahead of the upcoming May 3 election. Dr. Christopher Moran, superintendent, Dr. Taylor Kingman, school board president, and Dr. Merl Brandon, assistant superintendent of business support services and chief financial officer, answered questions from local media outlets regarding the bond proposition. According to SAISD's Bond 2025 Overview webpage, Bond 2025 is a $397 million bond designed to fund multiple renovations and new constructions across the district, including the renovation of 'aging buildings,' the construction of a new Glenn Middle School and the improvement of safety parameters throughout SAISD. RELATED: San Angelo ISD provides bond election breakdown During the conference, several questions pertaining to Bond 2025 were answered by Moran, Kingman and Brandon. Among the topics discussed were financial transparency, the role of voters in voicing the community's opinion about the bond proposition, the influence of Bond 2025 on voters' thoughts regarding the coliseum bond election and the potential impacts that decisions made in the Texas Capitol may have on SAISD. Moran said that the Bond 2025 proposition is being presented to taxpayers due to the district's reliance on bond elections to fund renovations and new construction that could serve future generations of San Angelo residents. 'Public schools can only be constructed through bond elections by local taxpayers, and that's why this is such an important decision, because once buildings are built correctly, they last for two to three generations,' Moran said. The officials stated that, regardless of whether one is for or against Bond 2025, becoming educated on the bond proposition and voting is encouraged. 'What we don't want are people to stay home and not vote,' Moran said. 'This is a community decision, people's voices need to be heard. Become educated, get out and vote.' Early voting for the May 3 election is scheduled to begin on April 22 and conclude on April 29, according to information available on the Tom Green County website. For more coverage about local politics, including the May 3 general election, visit Your Local Election HQ webpage. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SAISD to migrate students, staff to former Central freshman campus
SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) — San Angelo ISD has made plans to migrate students and staff involved with three programs operating across the city to the former Central freshman campus building, according to the district. An SAISD representative told Concho Valley Homepage that Special Education staff from the former Sam Houston Elementary campus, PAYS students housed at the Blackshear Learning Center campus and Carver Learning Center students would be moved to the former CHS freshman campus, located at 218 N. Oakes St. Special Programs staff will be moved to the freshman building's second floor, PAYS students will be relocated to its first floor and Carver Learning Center students will be moved to the campus's annex building. The Career & Technical Education courses currently being held at the campus will continue as usual. Cooper's Bar-B-Q warns of scammers as 2025 Concert Series nears During the SAISD School Board's March 24 regular meeting, Superintendent Dr. Christopher Moran stated that the migration will 'free up' maintenance at the campuses. 'That will free up Sam Houston and a lot of maintenance on those other three campuses, so it should be a good move long-term for us,' Moran said. An SAISD representative stated that the district's Special Programs staff has already begun transitioning to the campus and will complete the move 'by the middle of May.' Relocations for PAYS and the Carver Learning Center will start 'the week after graduation.' The district calendar states that graduation will occur on Saturday, May 24. All moves will be finished by July 1, according to the SAISD representative. To listen to the SAISD School Board's deliberation during the March 24 meeting regarding the relocation, click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
