In light of the recent decision by the Scottish Government minister Derek Mackay, Western Isles Council SNP Group leader councillor Donald Manford has written the minister highlighting the implications and consequences of his decision and to seek a way forward....
13th October 2014.
For the attention of Derek MacKay MSP
Minister for Local Government and Planning
Dear Minister
I am writing following your decision to refuse 3 planning applications for turbines in the Uists called in by you for determination.
While we have a wind energy resource in the Hebrides as good as any in Europe our population is seriously disadvantaged by the high level of fuel poverty. Our local development plan fully recognises the significant disadvantages of our peripheral location and contains a positive policy base to encourage development and inward investment.
Sadly, the implementation of the positive policy base is rendered impossible by what can only be described as the interference of external agencies who are operating without local accountability and furthering their own agendas without reference to the objectives of the local development plan or the economic issues pertinent to the Hebrides.
One of the primary objectives of a plan led system of land use control is delivering certainty of outcomes. Attracting inward investment to our islands is critically important and much more difficult than it is in the Central Belt of Scotland because of peripherality. Being able to deliver certainty of outcomes through the planning system is crucially important.
The two agencies currently causing the greatest distress to applicants are the MoD and Historic Scotland. The MoD have assets in the Hebrides but are routinely abusing the planning system by randomly opposing even the most modest wind turbine planning applications despite the fact there is no national defence issue which justifies such action. Evidence given to a recent hearing confirmed that there is no technical basis for these objections and that position is actually confirmed by the information on the statutory safeguarding maps referred to in Circular 2/2003. The MoD has signed a Memorandum of Understanding along with Scottish Ministers in which the MoD recognises that planning was a devolved matter and that only the Scottish Government could change the relevant legislation. Additionally the MoD agreed to work with those involved in wind energy projects to mitigate the impacts of turbine developments on MoD assets.
Unfortunately and by stealth the MoD has dramatically expanded over recent years what was a relatively restricted role as a statutory consultee to that with a potential remit over every planning application for turbines over 11metres in height, despite the fact that such turbines cannot be distinguished from vehicles when in the line of sight of radar installations. In addition the MoD no longer offer any meaningful pre application advice to applicants thus removing at a stroke the certainty of outcome which the system seeks to deliver. As a government we, regrettably, have given support to this agency to totally undermine our planning system by reiterating the MoD non statutory request to be consulted on every turbine application over 11metres in height in our planning guidance. As a consequence we cannot reasonably conform to the government guidance to planning authorities that they must identify areas where turbine developments may be acceptable. In the Uists alone our failure to address this issue has so far cost the community some millions of pounds and that simply cannot be acceptable locally or nationally.
Historic Scotland is an executive agency of our government. Recently, on the advice of our Head of Development Management, a Crofter minded to engage in a wind energy project where Scottish Ministers have previously refused permission for two 67 metre high turbines because of concerns about their potential impact on the setting of the Callanish Stones approached Historic Scotland to determine what height of turbine might be acceptable on the original site and what distance from the monument would be appropriate before a 67 metre turbine might be acceptable
There is an 18 metre turbine within 800 metres of the Callanish Stones which should provide a reference point for a response.
The Head of Development Management cannot assist the crofter and effectively delegated the authority to advise to Historic Scotland who, in turn, declined to give any meaningful advise at all. There is nothing in the adopted local development plan or the approved supplementary guidance to alert any applicant that HS can and will intervene in the planning process and, as we have recently seen, Scottish Ministers have called in an application for three 26 metre high turbines because of concerns relating to their impact on the ritual prehistoric setting of a burial cairn some 900 metres away. The priority here is to retain our population and sustain those that do remain on the islands. Historic Scotland has no regard for our priority and little respect for the fact that these ritual prehistoric landscape settings have already been dramatically changed by the hand of man.
What I believe we should be aiming for, particularly if we are serious about Local Empowerment, is the removal of the non statutory consultation recommendation from our guidance and imposing only the circular 2/2003 consultation requirement as far as the Mod are concerned. I urge this at least as an interim measure due to ongoing concerns regarding the adequacy and accuracy of the MoD evidence in support of its opposition to turbine applications pending, a thorough investigation by the appropriate government committee which will necessarily call on private sector expert testimony on the technical issues relating to radars and the actual impact of turbines on their operation. Limiting the scope of HS to intervene in relation to Scheduled Monuments to within a range of not more than 2 kilometres depending on the setting of the SAM would also serve to reintroduce the concept of delivering certainty of outcomes so clearly missing from the planning system currently. If we continue to fail to address this issue then I fear that an increasing number of applications will either be called in, thus removing local accountability from the planning process alternatively, decisions will be challenged in the Court of Session but most likely, investors simply driven away.
Yours sincerely,
Donald Manford
