Local residents have been voting on the plans to redevelop an area of cleared forest at Rumster, near Lybster. While the outcome of the ballot is awaited, Labour MSP Rhoda Grant has hit out at the £80,000 valuation placed on the land.

She claims it is about double the cost which Latheron, Lybster and Clyth Community Development Company should have to incur.

Mrs Grant is asking the rural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead to intervene as she believes the quotation has put the five-megawatt scheme "in significant danger".

The community company believes the wind farm could plough about £4 million into the area over the 20-year operation of two or three turbines.

The MSP says the price quoted for the 40 hectares of clear-felled Forestry Commission land is unreasonable. "This type of land is usually valued at about £1000 a hectare, but because the district valuer took into account the planned use it has been valued at £80,000," she said. "This has put the project, which will bring in money to be reinvested in local projects, in significant danger."

Mrs Grant continued: "It is a nonsense that this over-inflated price has been given to a community group, who are all volunteers.

"The implications for the project, which has been two years in planning, are onerous and time-consuming."

She said that, because the valuation is above £50,000, the company has had to hold a ballot.

Mrs Grant said the valuation is anomalous given that the National Lottery – one of the principal potential funders of the wind farm – expects public agencies to discount the price of land in community buyouts.

"It's flying in the face of this that the Forestry Commission appear to be doubling the price rather than reducing it," she said.

Just over 1000 people living in the Latheron, Clyth and Lybster Community Council area have been asked whether or not they support the plans.

The deadline for voting was Monday, with the result expected later this week.

If everything went to schedule, the wind farm would be up and running by the end of 2011.

The community company is projecting to secure an average annual dividend of £200,000 from the electricity sold to the national grid.

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