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to Denny power line Were still waiting to hear what decision the Scottish Ministers will make about the Beauly-Denny power line upgrade proposals. There has been absolutely no hint as to how their minds are working on the subject — but one day, supposedly by the end of the year at the latest, the decision will be announced. At that time too, the findings of the year-long Public Inquiry will be released. For as long as it takes, we will be continuing to do what we can to keep the issues in the forefront of the minds of relevant politicians. Quite a few thousand of our campaign postcards have now been sent in — the majority to Ochil and Stirling constituency MSPs Keith Brown and Bruce Crawford. It is very important that politicians do not forget what large numbers of their constituents strongly oppose the proposals to route extra high voltage power lines on giant pylons across Sheriffmuir, down through Logie and on over the carse. We continue to emphasise that there are perfectly viable alternatives; putting the line underground throughout the whole Stirling area makes total sense, is technically feasible, economically justifiable and affordable. We hope you were able to find people to sign and send off the postcards we enclosed with the previous newsletter. This campaign must go on right up to the point where the decision is announced, so we're enclosing two more. Please try to find friends or relatives who would be willing to sign these (and haven't done so far!), then stamp them and send them off to Jim Mather MSP, the Minister tasked with making the decision. We are sure that this campaign is making an impact — and the more postcards, the stronger the impact is going to be! But that's not all that we've been doing. In April, a delegation of four people from Friends of the OchiIs, Stirling Before Pylons and Scotland Before Pylons, went over to Brussels to lobby the European politicians. We had a good meeting with the Scottish MEPs, which resulted in their unanimous support for our position on undergrounding. Struan Stevenson MEP was quoted quite widely on TV and in the press, describing the applicants' proposals as "a nobrainer" — our view entirely! On a related matter, Ministers have recently announced that a formal list of Scottish battlefields is to be drawn up. Where a battlefield is included on the list, this will count as a 'material' fact in planning and similar processes; that is, it will afford a significant degree of protection from development. The Sheriffmuir Battlefield looks ideally qualified to be included in the list, as it meets all the criteria of having been a historically important battle, having the battlefield able to be defined on a map, not already being built over, and so on. Unfortunately, the list will not be published until 2011; that is, after the Beauly-Denny decision is finally made. But we hope and trust that the Scottish Government is capable of joined-up working, and will not give permission for a huge power line to go through one of Scotland's few major surviving battlefields, just at the time it is becoming protected from development. Keep watching
out for the final announcement on Beauly-Denny, and please keep sending
those postcards!
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