Wild Land Saved! Allt Duine Wind Farm Rejected.

A rainbow over the Allt Duine area

The long-running Allt Duine wind farm saga is finally over. Today the Scottish Government rejected this proposal for a huge wind farm in the Monadh Liath mountains on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park. This is a great victory for wild land and, along with other recent refusals of wind farms in wild land areas, hopefully presents a turning point for wild land protection.

The story began in 2011 when the wind farm was first proposed. Highland Council rejected it which triggered a public inquiry in October 2012, in which I took part for the Save the Monadliath Mountains campaign. Since then there has been silence until now. However the launch of the Wild Land Map and new planning regulations a year ago gave hope that the wind farm would be rejected as the area was clearly one that should be covered by these.

Many people and organisations have campaigned against this wind farm - the John Muir Trust, Mountaineering Council of Scotland, Cairngorms National Park amongst them. Today we can all celebrate. I feel elated, relieved and stunned - the latter because it seemed as though a decision would never come.

Camp above the Allt Duine

In rejecting the wind farm John Swinney, Deputy First Minister, said  “I have considered the Allt Duine application fully and have refused permission as the proposal would have a significant and unacceptable landscape and visual impacts in the local area, including on the Cairngorms National Park and on a wild land area.”

In response John Muir Trust Chief Executive Stuart Brooks says: "The battle to save this precious area of wild land has been long and hard. We are delighted that the Deputy First Minister John Swinney has come down on  the side of the people and the landscape against the energy giant RWE.

"We are  especially heartened by the Scottish Government's growing recognition of the importance of landscape, which is in tune with the views of the big majority of the population of Scotland and of the Highlands as revealed in two major opinion surveys.

"We also welcome the Minister's  acknowledgement that Allt Duine would have adversely affected the Monadhliath Wild Land Area [WLA 20]."

 

The Allt Duine hills

For the Mountaineering Council of Scotland Chief Officer David Gibson says " Like many other organisations and individuals we worked hard to seek refusal of consent for this development. We hope this is evidence of a firm and consistent commitment by the Scottish Government to the protection of wild land and Scotland’s mountains from similar massive industrial scale developments. That would demonstrate that it understands the value of wild land and the need to protect its special qualities for the benefit of all."

Both the JMT and the MCofS call for a clear commitment to wild land by the Scottish Government and for the rejection of the proposed Glencassley and Sallachy wind farms.

Today is a day for celebration.

Allt Duine, Wind Farms & Wild Land

The wide open spaces of the Allt Duine hills

Update: since I wrote this piece two excellent features have appeared on other sites. Cameron McNeish has written about wild land, what it is and why it needs protection for Walk Highlands and Alex Roddie has written about the proposed Caplich wind farm and the North West Highlands initially on his blog and then in an extended version for UKHillwalking.com. Both pieces are well-worth reading.

Also, the Mountaineering Council of Scotland has issued a new vision for Scotland's mountains and wild land along with a petition on 38Degrees which I urge everyone to sign.

The future of wild land in Scotland is in the balance. Since the encouraging new planning regulations and the wild land map were launched last June (see my post here) only a few wind farms that would impinge on wild land have been turned down. Many more are awaiting a decision. Whether these are rejected or not will determine just how meaningful the wild land map really is. I echo Cameron McNeish’s recent call for the Scottish Government to state now that no wind farms will be built on wild land areas. That, it seems to me, is one of the points of the wild land map – to say that this land is protected so proposing wind farms or other destructive developments is pointless.

One of the key decisions, long overdue, is about Allt Duine, a proposed wind farm right on the borders of the Cairngorms National Park. This is the fight I’ve been most involved in, as spokesperson for Save theMonadhliath Mountains, with many letters appearing in newspapers as well as several blog posts, the key one of which describes a walk in the Allt Duine area and shows with photographs just how wild the area is.

As well as Allt Duine decisions are awaited on Talladh-a-Bheithe on the edge of Rannoch Moor which I wrote about here; Cnoc an Eas above Glen Urquhart not far from Loch Ness; Caplich above Glen Oykel in the North-West Highlands (Alan Sloman has written excellent posts with detailed maps about the last two on his blog here and here); and Beinn Mhor on the edge of Glen Affric (Highland Council will make a decision on this on February 24th). These five are the most potentially destructive currently proposed wind farms in my opinion. They are not the only ones of course. Highland Council has recently produced a Wind Farm Map of the region that shows all suggested and built wind farms that is very useful for seeing the possible spread of wind farms into wild land.

Ben More Assynt - the Caplich wind farm would be clearly in view from this magnificent peak

 

Then there is Stronelairg, a huge wind farm in the Monadh Liath that was excluded from the wild land map, though it should not have been. Planning permission has been given for this but the John Muir Trust are mounting a legal challenge. Please support them.

Pressure from wild land lovers is important to try and prevent these wind farms going ahead. Write and email objections and comments to Highland Council and to the Scottish government.  Objections to Caplich can be made in the comments section on the Highland Council website here. Comment on social media too, tagging ministers and Highland Council, and support those organisations fighting for wild land – the John Muir Trust, Mountaineering Council of Scotland, Save the Monadhliath Mountains, Keep Rannoch Wild

Wind measuring mast in the Allt Duine hills

Note: anything I post about wind farms usually gets some responses about the whole issue of wind farms, climate change and wild land in general. I gave my view here. I haven’t changed it. And no-one is going to persuade me that wild land is not worth fighting for or that sacrificing it is necessary to combat climate change.

Wild Land & Wind Farms News

The peatlands of Allt Duine, site of the proposed wind farm

No CO2 Saved From Wind Farms on Peatlands

Carbon dioxide is stored in peat and released when the peat is disturbed. This has been known for many years. However those in favour of building wind farms on peatlands have always argued that the reduction in CO2 output from having electricity produced by the turbines outweighs the CO2 released by the damaged peat. A letter from scientists in the prestigious academic journal Nature was the basis for this belief. Recently, though, the same scientists have again written a letter published in Nature but this one says the exact opposite - wind farms built on peatland are very unlikely to save any CO2 at all. Their conclusion is that “the construction of wind farms on non-degraded peats should always be avoided”. In Scotland most wind farms are built on peat. It now seems that none of these wind farms are actually doing anything to reduce CO2, which rather destroys the main rationale for them being there and certainly calls into question whether any more should be built.

This news has been covered by the Mountaineering Council ofScotland and the Scottish Wild Land Group. There has not yet been a response from the Scottish government. I have written to my MSP, Fergus Ewing, who happens to be the Minister for Energy and Tourism, and had a response describing it as an “important matter” and saying that he is seeking advice and will respond to me again. I will report when he does.

Waiting for the Allt Duine Wind Farm decision

The Public Inquiry into the Allt Duine Wind Farm ended a few weeks ago and we now await the Reporter’s decision and report, which may not appear until the New Year. Fergus Ewing is the Minister responsible for accepting or rejecting the Reporter’s decision. I may well be writing to him again!

Turbines proposed for Killington Lake on the edge of the Lake District

I have to admit I haven’t paid too much attention to wind farms south of the border in England. One recent proposal did get through to me though, because it is so shocking, and that is for three 132 metre turbines by Killington Lake between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks and right on the edge of the Howgill Fells. This beautiful part of the country has already been damaged by wind turbines at Lambrigg. The new ones will be much taller and more obtrusive if built. Travelling down to Kendal on the train for the TGO Awards a few days ago I enjoyed the views of the Howgills and the rolling hill country on the edge of the Lake District. Turbines here would be a monstrous intrusion into a much-loved landscape. If you feel the same STAK, the group set up to oppose the wind farm, has a good website with advice on what you can do.

Note:

I have recently again been attacked as being pro wind farms on wild land because I accept the science behind climate change and also attacked as being a climate change denier because I won’t accept that wind farms shouldn’t be built on wild land! I wrote about my position here.

Allt Duine Wind Farm Inquiry - My Evidence

Rainbow over Allt Duine Country

Another day at the Allt Duine Inquiry in Aviemore. This time though I was more than an observer as I was giving evidence, which is to say, reading my precognition, as it's strangely called, which had already been submitted to the inquiry to add to the massive pile of documents, before being cross-examined by counsel for the  developers, RWE, and the representative for Kincraig Community Council, who support them. As my evidence is personal and subjective there wasn't much for them to question - mainly numbers of those who go there. I spent as much time commenting on the location of the photographs of mine such as the above, which were submitted by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland as part of their evidence. Ron Payne, the MCofS representative, gave evidence immediately before me. Finally the Reporter asked for information on a number of points, including the nature of the TGO Challenge. I then went back to being the audience, with one diversion to give a quick interview and have my photo taken for tomorrow's Press and Journal newspaper.

The section of the inquiry on landscape and visual impact is now complete. Still to come are policy, wildlife (mainly eagles, I think), tourism and recreation. This should all be completed by the end of next week. Then we wait for the Reporter to give her decision.

Below is the evidence I presented.

PRECOGNITION BY CHRIS TOWNSEND

1. I am a writer and photographer on outdoor activities, especially hillwalking and wild camping. I am very concerned with the conservation and restoration of the diminishing amount of wild areas in Scotland. Before the Cairngorms National Park was established I served on the Cairngorm Partnership’s Recreation Forum on behalf of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland. I then served on the MCofS’s Access and Recreation Committee for many years and I am now on its successor, the Landscape and Access Advisory Group. I served as the President of the MCoS from 2008-2011.
2. I have written extensively about the Scottish hills in magazine articles and books. I am the author of World Mountain Series: Scotland, a detailed look at the Scottish hills; The Munros and Tops, an account of a summer long walk over all these hills; and A Year In The Life Of The Cairngorms, a pictorial record of the area. I walk and camp in the Cairngorms and the Monadh Liath regularly, and have lived in Strathspey for the last 23 years. It is this background of knowledge and experience that I bring to my evidence.
3. For the last year I have been the spokesperson for Save the Monadhliath Mountains and have given many media interviews on behalf of this group. I have also visited the Allt Duine application site many times in the last year, camping in the hills and climbing the summits. For this Inquiry I have agreed to be a witness on behalf of Pitmain and Glenfeshie Estates. In giving this evidence I make no pretence at trying to carry out any technical assessment of the landscape and visual impact of the proposed wind farm development. Rather, I will simply speak to my own views, based on the above general and site specific experience, of the special qualities of the Allt Duine site and the mountains that surround it.
4. The application site lies in the heart of the Monadh Liath mountains, between the two Corbetts (summits between 2,500 and 3,000 feet/962 and 914.4 metres) of Carn an Fhreiceadain and Geal-charn Mor.  Not far to the west lie higher Monadh Liath mountains, the Munros Carn Sgulain and A’Chailleach, while to the south and east are the Northern Cairngorms with the Munros Sgor Gaoith, Braeriach and Cairn Gorm. The application site is clearly visible from all these hills - not just the summits but also the connecting ridges and some of the lower slopes. Should this application be approved and built those climbing these hills – and they are all important to hill walkers – will be faced with a view that will include the massive turbines instead of one of more hills and mountains.
5. The Monadh Liath is a subtle landscape of curving gentle slopes, vast sweeps of moorland, lonely pools and trickling burns; a spreading, quietly beautiful, complex tangle of water and hill, heather and grass, land and sky. A natural place, home to birds, animals and plants and with a wonderful feel of quietness and peace.  The attraction is in the wildness and remoteness, the sense of space and freedom rather than dramatic peaks or spectacular rock scenery. Here hill walkers can feel part of a wild natural world with little or no sign of humanity. The area is vast and you can walk all day without descending to roads or villages and then camp under the stars with just the moors and hills spreading all around.
6. Yet, this mountain area is also easily accessible. The application site is usually approached on tracks and paths from Strathspey that climb up through attractive pine and birch woodland. These tracks will be turned into wider roads for the wind farm if it is built and the quiet forest beauty of this approach will be lost. The tracks lead to the watershed between the rivers Spey and Dulnain which is also the boundary of the Cairngorms National Park. From here the view is of rolling moorland hills spreading into the distance. If the wind farm is built this view will change to one of a mass of huge turbines in the immediate foreground and the wonderful sense of the vastness of nature will be lost. There will be no more peace, no more quiet. The sounds will no longer be those of wind and water and the calls of moorland birds. Instead the view will be filled with metal structures towering into the sky and the scars of the bulldozed roads built to service them and the main sound will be the whirring of the turbines. Currently there is a good walk along the watershed between Carn an Fhreiceadain and Geal-charn Mor. If you, Madam Reporter, have not already undertaken that walk I would urge you to do so. With the presence of 31 turbines the whole beauty of that walk would be changed utterly. At present it is a lovely and slightly challenging walk across moorland hills with nothing manmade in sight other than a few tracks that are crossed. If the wind farm is built people in the future will not be able to gain the pleasure I and others now gain from this land. Please walk this route in its current condition to appreciate what I am saying.
7. The application area can also be approached from the west, over the Monadh Liath Munros, and from the north over another Corbett, Carn na Saobhaidhe, and the River Dulnain. This is a popular route for backpackers, especially on the annual TGO Challenge cross Scotland event in May, who cross the Monadh Liath from Fort Augustus or Loch Ness, camping en route. If the wind farm is built the turbines will be in view for much of this walk, destroying its core attractiveness in my view.
8. The Allt Duine itself, by which I’ve camped, is an attractive moorland stream running through steep banks of heather and blaeberry, with occasional little rock outcrops. The view is of distant, flat-topped hills and a huge spreading sky. Again this would be lost if turbines dominated the landscape.
9. For hill walkers this is a special place. The Monadh Liath is still one of the largest roadless areas in Scotland. Here you can relax in nature, away from the stresses and strains of modern society. The construction of wind turbines in this area would destroy this key perceptive quality of this landscape.
10. One of the main reasons for walking in the Scottish hills is to experience the natural beauty and vastness of the mountains. Any human artefact is an intrusion into this and the bigger it is, the more of an intrusion it is. Wind turbines are very noticeable and visually very intrusive in such a mountain landscape. Seeing a mass of them breaking the skyline destroys the sense of wildness and the closer they are the greater the effect. Turbines in the Allt Duine area would be very visible from the popular Northern Cairngorm hills, impacting on the view across Strathspey, and so they would affect walkers and mountaineers in the National Park as well as those who visit the application site and the hills immediately around it.
11. To sum up: the Allt Duine is a precious and remote area, yet also accessible and popular, where walkers go to experience nature and the sense of wildness away from roads and towns and society. Wind turbines here would destroy this sense of wildness that is absolutely key to the quality of this landscape for mountaineers, walkers and campers. Also, because the turbines would stand out in views from neighbouring hills, including the Northern Cairngorms, they would impinge on walkers and mountaineers in those areas too.

Allt Duine, the Monadh Liath & Wind Farms in The Scotsman

The feature I mentioned in this post is now available online on The Scotsman website here. It's the same text as in the printed paper but you miss the little picture of me looking a little windswept with the Allt Duine hills just visible in the dull weather behind me. It's no loss!

Allt Duine Wind Farm: Time to Object Again

View across Strathspey to the Allt Duine hills

A week ago I was looking across Strathspey from the slopes of Carn Ban Mor in the Northern Cairngorms to the snow-covered Monadh Liath,a soft line of rolling white hills. If the Allt Duine Wind Farm is built this view will be dominated by huge turbines and another part of the glorious wildness of the Scottish Highlands will be lost. Following the rejection of the wind farm proposal by Highland Council the decision is now in the hands of the Scottish Government. A public enquiry is now very likely but the result would not be binding on the government. I think it's important that those of us who feel that this wind farm is very much in the wrong place and should not be built tell the Scottish Government how we feel. Objections can be sent to econsentsadmin@scotland.gsi.gov.uk quoting the application reference 11/00853/S36. There is a template letter on the Save the Monadhliath Mountains website (scroll down to find the link). 

Allt Duine Update: Radio, Newspapers & Outdoors Magic

Tomorrow Highlands Council will accept or reject the Allt Duine wind farm proposal so today I've been talking to the media for last minute news pieces and publicity. I've been interviewed for the Independent and Moray Firth Radio and I'm waiting for a call from BBC Radio Scotland (missed them earlier - I'd gone out for a walk. It was a lovely day!). Jon Doran of Outdoors Magic contacted me too and has written a piece for OM, which you can see here, including quotes and pictures from my blog posts. Thanks Jon!

Now we just have to wait for the councillors to make their "site" visit (which doesn't actually go anywhere near the site), debate the issue and decide. In less than 24 hours we'll know. I'll be at the Council meeting and talking to the media afterwards. Fingers crossed!

Allt Duine Wind Farm Protest & Deferment, along with some ice

December 20^th was the day Highland Council was to decide whether to accept or reject the proposed Allt Duine wind farm, which would see 31 turbines, the majority 125 metres (410 feet) high, erected only a few hundred metres from the borders of the Cairngorms National Park (see my post for September 24 – Allt Duine: A Landscape Under Threat). To make the point that this is a wind farm too far the Save the Monadhliath Mountains campaign asked objectors to gather outside the Council offices to show our feelings before the meeting took place.

Having been agreed to be a spokesperson for the campaign I was asked to arrive just after 8 a.m. to do a live interview for BBC Radio Scotland before the demonstration or Council meeting began. Now this may not sound unduly early but to get there by that time I had to walk by torchlight down the half-mile track from my house to the nearest road where my car was parked as the track was too icy for it, scrape the ice off my car, hope that it would start and then drive 40 miles on icy pre-dawn roads. As the first 20 miles were on ice and snow covered roads that hadn’t been gritted they were rather slow and I turned up a little late to find a lone reporter standing in the dark freezing car park wondering where the hell I was. Due to my lateness there was no time to prepare and I went straight into the interview. I’m told it sounded okay!

The reporter then departed and I was the one standing alone in the cold. Hanging around feeling cold in an empty car park seemed an unattractive idea so I went off in search of a coffee. The exercise warmed me up, especially as I struggled to stay upright on icy pavements, though no coffee was forthcoming. The spreading pink dawn reflected in the swollen River Ness was pleasant to gaze at however. Back at the Council offices I found the first batch of demonstrators, a half dozen or so, clustered outside. Then we discovered that the Council meeting had been put back so the Councillors could go on a site visit to a smaller wind farm they were also to discuss that day. Having waved them off on their tour bus we decided hot drinks were a good idea whilst they were gallivanting so another café search was undertaken. It now being past 9 a.m. this was successful and we were soon warm and hydrated and ready to return to the fray.

Back at the Council again we found more demonstrators with placards and signs and the coffin from the Wake for the Wild event back in May plus the media in the form of TV, radio and newspaper reporters. Clearly the publicity about our action had attracted attention. As the spokesperson it was my job to be interviewed. Beforehand I had carelessly assumed this might mean three or four quick chats with reporters. Looking at the TV cameras and reporters queuing up I realised it wouldn’t be quite so easy going. In less than an hour I then gave around a dozen interviews, losing count as they came thick and fast. Throughout I tried to emphasise that this was a pro-landscape movement, that we were here to defend wild land and call for its protection and that the key word was location and in the case of the proposed Allt Duine wind farm the location was destructive and completely wrong.

Interviews over I joined the other demonstrators in the Council chamber to listen to the debate, the councillors now back from their site visit. That wind farm, for 20 turbines at Moy near Inverness, was rejected, on the advice of the planning officer, mainly because of the visual impact, particularly from the A9 highway and the Perth to Inverness rail line. It was then proposed that the Allt Duine wind farm decision should be deferred so the councillors could make a site visit. Why they hadn’t done this already seems a mystery as they had already deferred the decision once before so there had been plenty of time. As it is, they now hope to make a site visit early in January – if the winter weather allows of course. As well as visiting the proposed site I hope they will also visit various places in the Cairngorms National Park from which the turbines will be clearly visible and very intrusive and not just be concerned with the fact that the turbines won’t be visible from the A9 corridor in Strathspey, which is the line the developers are pushing when they say the wind farm will be unobtrusive. Overall though I think a deferment is a good outcome, given that the planning officer had recommended that the Council accept the application – even though the same criteria for rejecting the Moy wind farm apply far more strongly to Allt Duine. The planning officer did accept that there would some visual impact, saying that to avoid this the turbines should not carry any signs or logos, which is a bit like saying you can rip a work of art to bits but mustn’t then discolour the remnants as that would spoil it.

Now we wait to see what happens next year. The story has a long way to go yet.