‘Don’t let wind farm come between us’ villagers in Castletown are urged
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A plea has been made to Castletown community council to oppose a plan to build two wind turbines and a battery storage system between Bower and Durran and “send a strong message” on behalf of Caithness areas affected by such development.
The call came from campaign group No to Swarclett, which claims the proposal by Wind2 would affect residents and wildlife in the area.
The Bower and Castletown areas would be entitled to money from a community benefit fund while under the plans, residents within two kilometres of each turbine would qualify for a Near Neighbours Electricity Contribution scheme.
Speaking at last week's Castletown community council meeting, Tony Shaw, who helped set up the group, said: “We want you to support our campaign. More than that, we want you to take the opportunity to send a strong message on behalf of all affected communities across Caithness.
“There are enough turbines in Caithness already. No more are required. Tell them ‘We don’t want your bribes and we certainly don’t want to do this to our neighbours’.
“If you do this on our behalf, the Castletown community will gain the admiration and respect of many within and well beyond Caithness.”
But he added: “Whether the Wind2 proposal succeeds or not, if you support their proposal, in the eyes of others, Castletown will be seen as the community that didn’t care about their neighbours, and that for a small amount of money, sided with a wind farm company for a project that wasn’t even needed.”
Mr Shaw argued that wind farm developers try to turn one community against another. “Wind farm developments elsewhere have demonstrated that wind farm companies are prepared to use a larger community to override the wishes of a smaller and more affected community.
“With the Swarclett proposal, Castletown is barely affected. The small number of residents of the Bowertower community are very seriously affected. We do not want long-term damage to the relationship between the communities of Bower and Castletown,” he said.
Mr Shaw explained the turbines, each with a maximum blade-tip height of 149.9 metres, would be the size of “a 40-storey tower block”.
“With two skyscraper-sized turbines being proposed within 800m of four properties, and a further six properties within 1500m, that they will suffer noise and visual disturbance is undisputed.”
Mr Shaw said the turbines would “devastate an area of outstanding natural beauty teeming with wildlife” and “violate the valued natural landscape corridor between Castletown and Wick”.
Another member of the campaign group, Daniel Hopwood, claimed larger communities are protected with exclusion zones but smaller ones are not.
“Highland Council’s guidelines do include protecting the amenity of key transport routes, but not explicitly the amenity of residents. It is a sad state of affairs where people driving along a main road have more rights to be protected from the loss of amenity than people who will be forced to live beside them.
“It is part of our campaign to have Highland Council review and reduce the areas in which applications for wind farms can be made in Caithness.”
Mr Shaw took issue with Wind2’s claim that the development would have no significant impact on wildlife and claimed an independent study said “around 70 per cent of species do not return to wind farm disturbed sites”.
“Curlews are a particular concern being a species in serious decline and with a unique behaviour that makes them more vulnerable to turbines.”
He argued that the Swarclett scheme will make no significant contribution to net-zero objectives and said the group understands that Wind2 operates no wind farms, at present, but is involved with Octopus Energy and French company EDF on other projects.
Castletown community council agreed to come to a view on the proposed wind farm at its meeting in May.
Wind2, which is based in north-east Wales but has staff in Scotland, including in Cromarty, said the project – if approved – would have a total installed capacity of around 20 megawatts.
The company also said the development would create jobs during its construction and operation and is expected to generate £1.4 million in community benefit over its 30-year lifetime.
