Today, the Save Monadhliath Mountains (SMM) campaign has issued a strongly worded letter to RWE Npower Renewables Ltd demanding the power company withdraw their proposal to erect a 31 turbine wind farm on the very edge of the Cairngorms National Park (the Park and CNP) boundary at Allt Duine. The campaigners argue that the case against the application is so overwhelming that “the proposal will limp into the Minister’s in tray for a decision before being hastily dispatched to the wastebasket.”
The SMM campaign believes that three important reasons have combined to make a ministerial decision in favour of the application impossible. The three reasons are the:
· ministerial decision to refuse the Glenkirk wind farm application on both wild land grounds and the significant adverse landscape and visual impact assessment effects on the CNP. Allt Duine’s proximity and impact on the Park would be far greater.
· Allt Duine application site now lies wholly within the proposed Scottish Natural Heritage Monadhliath Core Wild Land Area (area 17 in the new map).
· opposition from three statutory consultees: Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Cairngorms National Park Authority and The Highland Council.
Outdoor author, photographer and former President of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, Chris Townsend, is spokesman for the SMM campaign and lives in the Cairngorms National Park.
Chris Townsend, said: “It is clear that Allt Duine is a speculative application that took advantage of the Scottish Government’s political commitment to renewable energy. Everyone is convinced that a wind farm at Allt Duine would be a step a too far for the beautiful scenery of the Cairngorms National Park and the Monadhliath Mountains. I hope that RWE will do the decent thing and withdraw the application immediately.”
The campaign and its supporters feel that the 31 turbines, the majority of which are a massive 125m in height, (equivalent to a stack of 28 double-decker buses), are completely inappropriate for a wild area of outstanding natural beauty. The cabling, roads and turbines will have an irrevocable impact on the landscape, wildlife and ornithology of the Park and the Monadhliath Mountains – an area that the Scottish Government wishes to protect through its emerging new Core Wild Land Area policy.
In July 2013, the Allt Duine public local inquiry report was passed by the Reporter to the Energy Consents and Deployment Unit for civil servants to consider and deliver a recommendation to ministers.