Highland campaigners slam SSEN power line plans for Caithness, Sutherland, Ross-shire and Inverness-shire
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FURIOUS residents have accused energy bosses and the government of trying to "industrialise the Highlands" after they gathered to protest controversial plans for major new power lines and substations.
Dozens of concerned residents packed into Kiltarlity Community Hall, or joined in on Zoom, to protest against proposals by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) for a new 400kV power line between Beauly and Caithness, which would include new High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) converter stations at both Beauly and Spittal in Caithness which it says it wants to co-locate with new substations.
A new substation is also earmarked for Loch Buidhe in Sutherland, as well as subsea cables from Caithness to Aberdeenshire, and an overland power line from Beauly to Peterhead. A future power line connection from Beauly to the Outer Hebrides is also in its early stages.
Critics have warned that the new site near Beauly would cover an area of 56 acres – somewhere between 30 and 35 football pitches.
The meeting's organisers, Communities B4 Power Companies (CB4PC), claim more than 150 people attended the event, either in person or online, to express anger over the plans, which campaigners say have left people "in tears" and generated so much negative feedback online that SSEN's consultation officers have been struggling "to deal with the traffic".
Related: Consultation on controversial Caithness to Beauly powerline plan extended by SSEN
Frustrated protesters claim that the matter has been made worse by a "derisory" initial one-month consultation window and two-week extension in which people can air their concerns. They added that staff have been taking annual leave during the consultation period, maps and information on the website have been "inadequate", and ‘out of office’ is "the response to most approaches".
And one of the campaign's leaders fears that energy bosses will run roughshod over their concerns, arguing this is what has happened in the past.
“We learnt from the Beauly-Denny line objections that SSEN’s ‘listening to stakeholders’ is a cynical box-ticking exercise – a tiny fig leaf of consultation on a very big pylon. They ignored all our input. The same will happen this time,” said CB4PC campaigner Lyndsey Ward
Ms Ward told the meeting that based on the experience of fighting the Beauly-Denny power line – which went live in 2015 – there was no point in battling SSEN on the structures and routes they propose at this stage. Beauly to Denny was fought and lost on environmental issues, she said, and that advice to CB4PC from its planning policy expert is to oppose the proposals on a ‘no need’ basis.
“Crazy though it may seem, there is no master plan for Scotland and the UK showing power requirements, either now or in the future, measured against what is being produced and what is in the system for future production,” she said at the meeting. “We want the facts and figures not just having it forced upon us. Show us the evidence we need this transmission because we have looked and we can’t find it”
“Wind farms are being consented willy-nilly with no idea where their power is needed or how it will get there. This whole rush for power is driven by an unholy alliance between greedy wind farm developers, fat cat power companies – SSEN parent company SSE, one of Scotland’s most prolific wind farm developers, earned £3.6bn profits last year – and Scottish ministers with their mad drive to green wash Scotland.
"When the wind blows, we already produce more green power than we can use now and in the future.” said Ms Ward. “When it doesn’t we have to get reliable generation wherever we can get it”.
“Like similar campaigns in Argyll and Dumfries, we will demand that OFGEM and SSEN show us the need for this power which threatens to ruin people’s lives and despoil one of the most beautiful places on earth in order to send electricity south to England.”
Her comments came as CB4PC launched a series of new posters and billboard adverts designed to take their fight to the wider public. The new adverts feature a young woman and the Highland landscape, with power line pylons superimposed over both of them, accompanied by the words: "What kind of thung scars Highland beauty? Just say No to SSEN and Scottish Government plans".
They also feature the protest group's web address - www.communitiesb4powercompanies.co.uk
“We intend this to be a campaign like never before seen in the Highlands. We have had enough of being dumped on and we demand to be listened to," said Ms Ward.
Meanwhile, Denise Davis, another speaker at the Friday night's meeting, likened the proposed power infrastructure to the railway boom and bust mania of the 19th century when lines like the Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway in the Highlands were never viable. “While SSEN and Scottish ministers rape our countryside with their schemes, nothing is planned south of the border to carry the power they will produce for the next ten years; in fact, the opposite," she said. "England is planning its own network of small nuclear power reactors. Scotland’s electricity will be left all charged up with nowhere to flow. It’s utter madness”.
A submission has gone to SSEN and Ofgem demanding what campaigners call a fairer approach.
“This plan only looks ahead seven years,” said Ms Ward. “But don’t be fooled into thinking it will stop there. Once you let SSEN get away with building what they want, there will only be more to follow. They already refer to there being ‘room for expansion’ on their preferred site for the 60 acre substation at Fanellan.”
