Grayside Wind Farm - Culter Fell, Hudderstone and Surroundin

[FraserHughes]

A new wind farm is being proposed which affects the Culter Fell, Hudderstone and surrounding peatlands area. You can view details of the development here:

https://graysidewindfarm.co.uk/

I am generally a big supporter of renewable energy, and would acknowledge that on-shore wind is an important part of that, however I find myself strongly opposed to this development specifically. The siting of many of the turbines and access roads is on sensitive peatlands; obviously, a habitat in significant decline but one international recognised as extremely important and a resource for capturing and storing CO2.

The Scottish Government's Climate Change Plan sets targets to restore 50,000 hectares of degraded peatland by 2020, increasing to 250,000 hectares by 2030. I believe the proposed development is incompatible with this plan. Peatland restoration has many other benefits including providing an internationally rare habitat, improving water quality and reducing flood risk.

The peatlands in the area of the proposed development are the summer breeding grounds of Curlew and Skylarks, two RSPB Red-listed Species*, alongside supporting Snipe, Woodcock, Meadow Pipits, Wheatear and others. The loss of this peatland would be a significant blow to efforts to stop the decline of these birds.

On top of this walks in the area including the Culter Fell - Gathersnow Hill - Hudderstone circuit, as featured on walkhighlands, would be significantly affected. With outdoor exercise, nature and wild spaces being increasingly recognised as extremely important for mental health I feel this is unacceptable.

This development would significantly decrease the wild feeling of the area and remove this resource. I believe this would also be to the economic detriment of the Biggar, Lanark and Coulter area which is heavily reliant on tourists and day trippers.

I have emailed Arcus Consulting and my MSPs with a document on why I believe this development should be opposed, and recommended a different approach, championing biodivisity and recreation for the benefit of nature and local community, similar to that employed by the Borders' Forest Trust at Talla, Carrifran and Corehead, to the developer. If you would like to do similar please PM me and I will happily forward you the email and documents to look at.

Thanks.

[FraserHughes]

I should have included the proposed site plan in my original post:

[FraserHughes]

The visibility reports are now in: https://graysidewindfarm.co.uk/about/

There are unfortunately no panoramas from the surrounding hills but as you can see from the below all turbines will be clearly visible from Tinto, Culter Fell, the wild land area (as defined by NatureScot) at Talla-Hart Fell*, and areas of the Pentlands:





* https://www.nature.scot/wild-land-area-descriptions

[Tinto63]

This proposal saddens me, but is not really a surprise given the number of turbines already in the area. I went up over Cowgill Rig in July 2020 and onto Hudderstone and then walked down to the south end of Cowgill Upper reservoir and then north along the westside of the reservoir. I will retrieve some of my photos and post them tomorrow. I will certainly be putting in an objection, as the proposed size of the turbines (200m) seem to be out of scale with the relatively low nature of these hills.

[Sgurr]

If there is anything like hosting your "Fair Share" of windfarms, I would have thought Borders Council had done its civic duty. On the whole, I don't mind these Borders wind farms so much as the hills are already blanketed with conifers in many places, it is just that we have got used to this sort of desecration by monoculture. However, this is a different matter as the op points out.

[AyrshireAlps]

Exactly my thoughts on the conifers Sgurr, a blight that have been there so long that they have became 'acceptable'.

That is until they are removed and the god awful mess that remains is left. As bad as open cast mines, at least the old open casts can be used for other activities.

I don't mind the turbines as much tbh, as we're all benefitting from them.

[FraserHughes]

Thanks for your replies all.

I'm in complete agreement about conifers!

I should highlight I'm not opposed to all wind farms, onshore wind has, at least in the short to medium term, to be a part of any future carbon-neutral electricity generation plan. However, there are plenty of better sites, former industrial sites, old commercial conifer plantations, areas of mineral soils to name a few, which would have a significantly lower environmental impact than building on peatlands as proposed in this development.

The below research shows evidence that in a comprehensive carbon audit, more carbon may be emitted by erecting a wind farm of this scale on peatland, than the wind farm will save during its lifetime; and that siting large scale wind farms on peatland is not the best way to achieve zero carbon targets, especially now that the cost of offshore construction is nearing parity with onshore:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273824729_Wind_farms_on_undegraded_peatlands_are_unlikely_to_reduce_future_carbon_emissions

[Giant Stoneater]

Recently there was a article from a windfarm company that had 15 to 20 onshore windfarms in the pipeline and the only reason they stated for them being built in Scotland rather than anywhere else in the UK was that they were more free from restrictions and easier to get through planning in Scotland.

[EmiMac]

Fraser... I'd be very interested in having your email and any further information to help submit at objection. I am not sure how to contact you directly? Emily