1) The SNP Comhairle Group wholeheartedly supports Crofters in their aspirations to own and operate Wind Energy Companies which pertain to their grazing rights.
2) The SNP Comhairle Group will seek to assist crofting groups to establish Wind Energy Companies which are set up to distribute profit to its shareholders. These Crofter shareholding companies must set out to be facilitative, transparent and accountable in their methods of operation – a community-elected board of representatives elected annually by shareholders and all AGM, minutes and financial accounting returns made public.
Underpinning Rationale with Supporting Deductive Reasoning
Multinational and Crofter Owned Wind Energy Schemes
The Long Island is uniquely blessed in being specially placed in rivers of wind. The winds experienced have been endured by our Long Island ancestors since The Ice melted yet the wind may now be considered a benefit in that the technology, the knowledge and the conduit to market is available and ready for development. The locational benefit of the Islands has been recognised by multinational companies who operate for the maximum benefit their shareholders. It stands therefore that where crofters are the shareholders in the company developing the wind energy that company must also operate for the maximum benefit of its shareholders. This is in strict statutory compliance with Company Law. Companies where the ownership is vested with the crofters will return a profit yield for the duration of the first turbine and its replacements which would normally be over fifty years on the basis that each generating machine will last twenty five years. Development by multinationals on crofters' grazings will disinherit the crofters with rights in the grazings on a multi-generational basis and alienate them from their reources.
Community Embedded Ownership, Profit Yield and Economic Benefits
All development of wind energy is to be welcomed however this should be considered in the context that some ownership and profit yielding arrangements have a more optimum fit for our Islands than others. It is our policy where possible to facilitate and support Crofter owned, profit yielding renewable energy companies which have a margin of community benefit for non crofting residents with an aim to tackle fuel poverty in the Islands and non-crofting residents associations / community bodies be co-opted onto these local companies. These companies in turn having a core policy of sourcing the technical, business and financial knowledge and expertise locally for their duration, a duration which we hope will continue and flourish for many generations. Use of energy is set to continue and we hope that renewable energy will form a significant part of this usage and it is our aspiration to have this energy sector owned by Islanders with the profits recirculated in the Islands' economy to form to basis of a resurgent, secure and sustainable economic future. The population of the Islands is currently diminishing at the alarming rate of over one percent per year. The current multinational owned schemes do very little to address this alarming trend. We must change the island economy to being an expanding economic vehicle with genuine community ownership and benefit. Improved economic conditions and good quality well paid jobs will work wonders for the Islands' economy.
Crofter Entrepreneurship
Our policy is to have the Crofters and Islanders as the entrepreneurs and to be as adept at energy Contracts for Difference and turbine Lifecycle Maintenance Contracts as they currently are at stock management. We are mindful that Crofting was traditionally more about allowing people to live on the land than it was about agricultural exports due to the nature of the ground and the underlying rock strata, however the scale of technology available today and the nature of the rivers of wind that we have, allows the land in crofting tenure to become truly productive from an energy exporting and financial income perspective.
Finance and Market Connection
The current crofter owned schemes have the same dependency on an inter-connector as the multi-national schemes. The current multi-national schemes are not being delayed by finance but by the fact that the crofters have not been disinherited on a multi-generational basis by their grazings being resumed from crofting tenure. The same finance is available as the the finance is scheme dependent rather than dependant on the ownership dynamic of the schemes. Similarly there is sufficient financial and business know-how in the Islands to arrange the necessary funding.
(Future direction of Comhairle Policy)
We accept that current Comhairle policy dating from previous administrations is dictated by the whims, financial aspirations and multi-national business connections of major players in the Labour Party. We accept that current Comhairle policies are aimed at preventing Crofter and Island entrepreneurs from developing schemes of this size. It is our stated aim to work with any and all others to change the current policy of the Comhairle to facilitate crofters to develop renewable energy schemes on their own grazings. It used to be that councillors could act with impunity against the best interests of their constituents, however, events in Uist show that this is changing.(It is the policy of the Western Isles council SNP group to work in the best interests of our constituents and the greatest benefit for the people of the Islands.
Supporting Local Businesses
Encouraging and supporting entrepreneurship and business in the Islands in all its various forms is one our fundamental policies. By example, the Islands used to have shipping companies and a fleet of fishing boats yet these two sectors of the economy are now depleted. The individuals involved were highly talented visionaries yet without government support, guidance and assistance at the national and at the local level, the businesses went into decline due to changes in their operating environments. This can be contrasted with Norway where small shipping and fishing companies were supported by the government during changes in their operating environments in the seventies due to containerisation and improvements in road haulage and changes in fishing techniques. The result is that these companies are still operating and flourishing in the North Sea supplying oil rigs rather than coastal communities and providing safety and rescue cover rather than being directly involved in fishing. These companies have provided work and incomes to two generations of Norwegians in their coastal communities. The contrast between rural West Coast and Island Norway and rural West Coast and Island Scotland is quite striking when considered in this generational time-frame and context. We must do the same here and support emerging companies where ownership is embedded in the community and where the profits are passed into the community and where the community economy benefits from that money being circulated. Supporting community owned businesses is supporting.Denying support is preventing the future potential of a positive position and condemning the local economy and the community to guaranteed failure.
Policy of Support and Inclusivity for Current and Future Generations
Our policy is to do our utmost and best to improve the lives of the greatest portion of our population to allow them to achieve their potential to their greatest extent. We have this policy for all those people of the Islands that we see, for all those we have yet to see as they have yet to be born and for all those we shall not see as our time shall be past before they are born. We are clear that our policies must be supportive and inclusive of all these groups and over these time frames. It is our policy that the economic benefits of renewable energy should be available to the crofters and the residents of the Islands and that this should be on an ownership and profit yielding basis and that the financial, technical and business knowledge to make it happen should be embedded in the community. The development of crofting can only happen with supporting policy underpinning its advances where the people who live and work on the land benefit first and foremost.
