2 days ago
German firm should think again about wind farm near Glen Affric
On August 6 the German company wrote to community councils saying it had submitted its planning application for 20 mega-sized turbines to the Scottish Government in July after consulting with the community and refining its plans. Those 'refinements' are certainly not obvious and it is doubtful they have changed anything at all after public 'feedback'. Cherry-picked viewpoints, misty visuals and turbines not much larger than cows all serve to try and downplay what will be a catastrophic impact for so many.
Apparently, interested parties could view the application on the Energy Consents Unit (ECU) website or visit Beauly post office to have access to a hard copy expected to be thousands of pages long.
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The reference number they gave was for another wind farm entirely – it was also on their public notification advert on their website. The correct number was only showing as still in scoping on the ECU – not a planning application.
Visits to Beauly post office on August 7 – actually a fuel station and busy shop with a shared counter – established there were no documents and the staff had no idea when or if they would arrive.
The venue is several miles from the most impacted community in Kilmorack. Accessing large files online is proving difficult, so provisions must be made for Kilmorack to have a hard copy.
The chaos didn't stop there. When the planning application finally appeared on the ECU on August 8, it was for 36 turbines with a much higher installed capacity than the 20-turbine application should have.
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EnergieKontor has treated the local communities with little more than contempt. The confusion with so many errors has not endeared itself to an already hostile population. This is the third time a foreign wind developer has attempted to industrialise the same hills, and the majority of visitors to EnergieKontor's public 'consultation' tick-box certainly appeared to be firmly against the development.
EnergieKontor has a live planning application in for two met masts for Ballach wind farm. When asked how they could submit a planning application without knowing the wind speeds in the area, they replied that they were using 'historic data'.
So why did they waste Highland Council's time and our money and bother with the met masts application if they already had the information required? The historic data from German ABO Wind speculators in the same area was 'insufficient wind', and was why they withdrew their unwanted proposal in 2015.
Save yourselves some money, EnergieKontor, and do the same. Leave this community in peace. It is heartily sick of speculating developers like you attempting to industrialise where they live for profit.
Lyndsey Ward
Beauly
INSTEAD of providing coverage of the words of the Palestinian Ambassador, Riyad Mansour, at the emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Sunday (called to debate Israel's plan to take over Gaza City), both the BBC and ITV decided to exclusively cover Benjamin Netanyahu's diversionary event promoting 'fake news' about the deliberate starvation and the plethora of unimaginable atrocities conducted on behalf of Netanyahu's fanatical right-wing government.
Sadly, although not unexpectedly, many UK newspapers also decided to effectively repeat Netanyahu's propaganda rather than provide a serious attempt at some semblance of reporting balance.
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How can any media claiming impartiality refer to 20 despicably-held Israeli 'hostages' without mentioning the thousands of Palestinians who have been summarily abducted, many subsequently suffering from beatings and torture? How can journalists refer to a 'war' without pointing out that Israel has overwhelming military superiority (supported by weapons and intelligence from the US/UK) and is carrying out unfettered destruction and annihilation of the Palestinians?
With the latest deliberate slaughter of Palestinian journalists (on the pretext of one being a Hamas operative but with no evidence presented to back this claim) surely it is time for UK journalists, including those at the BBC and ITV, to speak out and end this reporting sham, which in effect helps to facilitate the starvation and continuing massacre of innocent men, women and helpless children.
Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian
DAVID Lammy continues to deny information from RAF intelligence flights is passed to the Israeli genocide force. The MoD says that only hostage location information is passed. Somebody is not very good at their job if there are any unfound hostages even after 500-plus flights have taken place since December 2023. I think it would be reasonable if the flights were to continue over Israel so that the location of Palestinians held without trial or legal representation could be established.
M Ross
Aviemore
