One might say that winning three out of four appeals is a good result, but it still means yet another windfarm in the Ochils (along with Green Knowes and Burnfoot Hill). And it is a bitter blow to the Windfarm Awareness Group, which mounted a well-organised and intensive campaign to Lochelbank. It collected over 1000 letters of objection to the proposed development, as well as presenting extensive evidence at the public inquiry. It’s going to be tough for the people of the eastern Ochils with a windfarm of 12 turbines, each over 300 feet high, on their doorstep.

However, we haven’t yet finished fighting individual applications. The application for five turbines on land near Tillyrie in the Ochils, to the north east of Milnathort, goes to public inquiry on Wednesday 12 December. This follows the decision by the developer to appeal on grounds of non-determination by Perth and Kinross Council (PKC). This is the second application for a windfarm on this site (the first having been refused by the council in November 2005). At a meeting of the Perth and Kinross Council Development Committee in June of this year, the council opposed the application again. But, as it had already been appealed, they were not in a position to refuse it.

PKC were not prepared to consider the application until the results of the four public inquiries for Snowgoat Glen, Little Law, Mellock Hill and Lochelbank were known, but the developer (for reason best known to themselves) could not wait that long. Friends of the Ochils, in partnership with the Tillyrie Windfarm Action Group and others will fully support PKC at the public inquiry to ensure that this appeal is not allowed.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no further windfarm applications for the Ochils in the pipeline. However, there is always the possibility that further applications might be made. Continued vigilance will be necessary.

Other issues continue to frustrate and annoy. Take, for example, the question of how the approved windfarms are to connect to the grid. Already Scottish Power is laying the cable between the sub station at Fishcross and Glendevon, primarily along the B9410 and the A91/A823 to connect Green Knowes to the grid. However, because it is looking unlikely that Wind Prospect will get their desired grid connection route down the scarp face of the Ochils, via Ben Ever and the Silver Glen (a totally unacceptable route even to Clackmannanshire Council as well as ourselves), there could be a second grid connection required from Burnfoot Hill to Fishcross, not miles away from the Green Knowes cable.

It would seem it has not been possible to share the same cable, so there will be two grid connections instead of one. In a small way this is illustrative of the whole windfarm debacle in the Ochils and elsewhere, as it highlights the complete lack of strategic planning and co-ordination. There will be a scattering of windfarms throughout central Scotland, from the Fintry Hills, the Braes of Doune through the Ochils and into Fife; a windfarm to spoil every view from virtually every top in the Ochils.

Finally, on a personal note, I spent one of those recent beautiful October days walking across the building site of the Green Knowes windfarm. Not to be recommended if you have walked regularly in that part of the Ochils. The building work is industrial vandalism of the hills on a massive scale, to be repeated twice over at Burnfoot Hill and Lochelbank. When the reality of what is happening is to be seen on the ground and not through Reporters decision letters etc, the impact of multiple windfarms in the Ochils hits home.

Maybe the answer to this madness is to get as many of our decision makers to take the same walk; the reality of what is being done to our precious landscape might just spur them in to action.

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