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‘A blatant abomination’: North coast resident blasts plan to erect antenna park for Sutherland Spaceport on summit of Ben Tongue





A NORTH Coast resident has said the proposed installation of an antenna park for Sutherland Spaceport on the summit of Ben Tongue would be a “blatant abomination”.

John Williams, a retired physics teacher who lives in Talmine, is objecting to a renewed application for planning permission for the spaceport along with a separate antenna park.

John Williams.
John Williams.
An artist's impression of the antenna park on top of Ben Tongue.
An artist's impression of the antenna park on top of Ben Tongue.

He is not alone in opposing the plan to erect antennas on the summit of Ben Tongue.

Ian and Rachel Broughton, who live on a small croft on the slopes of Ben Tongue, have said development will ruin the peace and quiet of their rural home.

Ian and Rachel Broughton are upset and distressed over the plan to relocate the Sutherland Spaceport antenna park to the top of Ben Tongue.
Ian and Rachel Broughton are upset and distressed over the plan to relocate the Sutherland Spaceport antenna park to the top of Ben Tongue.

Space company Orbex, has been granted a 50-year lease by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) to build and operate the £20 million, vertical launch spaceport on land owned by Melness Crofters Estate at A’Mhoine peninsula, west of Tongue.

Full planning consent was granted in August 2020, and work on the site began in May 2023.

Good progress made on building ‘floating road’ to Sutherland Spaceport site

But now Orbex wants to move sophisticated antennas, used to track the trajectory of rockets as they shoot into space carrying commercial satellites, from the main spaceport site to the top of 991 ft high Ben Tongue.

Ben Tongue is about five miles from the main spaceport site as the crow flies. There is already telecommunications infrastructure on the summit.

The separation of the antenna park from the main spaceport site required Orbex to submit a new planning application.

The company submitted a Proposal of Application Notice with the local authority in November and then undertook a consultation with local residents before submitting the full planning application earlier this month.

A design and access statement states that the antenna park will consist of two compounds, a container compound and a dish compound. The dish compound consists of two antenna dishes with a maximum height of 9m when fully operational and two 10m high masts.

In his objection, Mr Williams states that he objects not only to the installation of the antenna park on Ben Tongue, but also to the entire spaceport scheme.

He said: “The installation on Ben Tongue is already visually unappealing. The addition proposed will elevate it to be an even more blatant abomination - one visible for miles in many directions except when in cloud.

“The facility proposed for Ben Tongue is ‘mission creep’, yet more industrialisation desecrating the North Highland…The visual impact will be stark. The damage, both extant and yet to come will take decades if not centuries to hide, millennia to heal, the archaeological scarring is effectively permanent.”

Rachel Broughton previously said: “The mechanics of getting the antennas to work, let alone using them for their 12 launches a year, will require intensive maintenance and frequent visits to the site.

“This will turn Ben Tongue into a full-time industrial site with at least double the traffic currently going up to the mast.”

Orbex chief of spaceport operations Lesley Still has pointed out that the company inherited the design of the spaceport from Highlands and Islands Enterprise

She said no analysis had been carried out when the spaceport was designed, nor had a vehicle, rocket or range service provider been identified.

“We are required to track the flight of the rockets and it became pretty clear when we looked at the designs that we wouldn’t be able to do that from anywhere on the main site,” she said. “So we are proposing the relocation of that antenna part to the top of Ben Tongue which will give us a much better trajectory oversight.”

Ms Still added that moving the antenna park would have the added benefit of reducing the footprint of the spaceport from what was originally planned, resulting in less disturbance to peat.


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