The Highlands are revolting!

Over 50 community councils from across the Scottish Highlands and Islands have launched a campaign calling for a moratorium on renewable infrastructure throughout the region. At a packed meeting last week, the rage and despair were palpable. Residents from Skye to Inverness described how their communities had accepted many industrial renewables developments – only to have more, bigger, more intrusive developments proposed. The communities argue that a moratorium is essential until major changes to law and regulation in the area have been developed and consulted on.

To achieve the communities’ aims, significant changes would need to be made to planning regulations and energy policies, by both Scottish and UK governments. In particular, there has been almost no effort made to develop spatial strategies for renewable energy development in Scotland or the UK. This is possibly because it would severely inconvenience both governments and energy developers.

Currently, windfarm companies can target areas with sparse populations, and areas without National Park status seem to be considered fair game. These are now badly overloaded with speculative development applications, often deluged with multiple applications at a time. Severely impacted areas include Caithness, Moray and South Ayrshire.

The cynics amongst us have believed for a long time that developers are particularly targeting areas that already have large wind developments and where grid capacity is already inadequate, leading to windfarms being paid to switch off. On the first score, what could be better for a developer than an area where the community has already exhausted their energy and funds in fighting the multinationals? On the second, it is now well understood by communities that developers get paid more when their machinery is sitting idle than when it is producing. It is therefore entirely logical for commercial developers to apply for extensions to developments that are already switched off for 25% or more of the time. The Scottish Government has stated that these so-called ‘grid constraints’ are not a matter to be considered under Scottish planning regulations.

Another issues that is of major concern across the Highlands is that there has been no re-assessment of wind turbine noise impacts in decades. The standards used to assess visual impacts are also totally outdated. Now, no-one blinks at a development which proposes turbines over 200 metres high. Residents have almost no chance against big business and KCs at public local inquiries. They have been lied to and ignored. No wonder residents are furious.

Participants at the meetings may have felt more hopeful that change will happen because of the attendance of – and professed support from – local MPs and MSPs. After all, there were eleven of them, of all hues, in attendance. Unfortunately, the public risk severe disappointment on that front. While the politicians wrung their hands and pledged support, with a few honourable local-councillor exceptions, their record shows that they will not deliver. Indeed, several of the SNP MSPs and MPs at the meeting have been vocal supporters of the renewable gold rush – with the very occasional objection to a development that affected their own patch. And one has to admire the brass neck of Fergus Ewing MSP. As SNP Business Energy and Tourism Minister between 2011 and 2016, he was personally responsible for approving some of the worst energy developments in the Highlands. Having now apparently found the road to Damascus, does he apologise? Not at all. Instead, he said that now, having got annoyed about other matters and resigned the SNP whip to become an independent, he will take on the communities’ cause.

Meanwhile, despite his apparent support for the residents, Jamie Stone, the long-serving Liberal Democrat MP, has actually relentlessly supported the renewables Net Zero mantra. As for the Conservatives, they have come and gone on this issue, but certainly achieved nothing on it in either parliament.

Of course, the communities will have read between the carefully delivered lines. They are no fools. Moreover, Fergus Ewing’s suggestion that the main Holyrood parties should gang up to keep out Reform at the 2026 Scottish elections did rather give the game away: uniting all the parties that have delivered nothing but the industrialisation of the Highlands over the last 20 years in order to exclude the one party that has a platform of stopping it made no sense unless you assume that his primary concern – and that of the other politicians in the room – was retention of his parliamentary salary.