Wild Land News no 68, Spring 2007

What do hillgoers think of renewables in the wilds? Article

A straw poll on Ben Wyvis by David Jarman

On Christmas Eve, we had done enough shopping and cooking to be allowed out for half a day in the pure blue calm Ross-shire 'wilds'. For a quick training trip I lit upon Beinn nan Cabag, a curious hillock only 474m high in the middle ground west of Garve between the Achnasheen road and the Ullapool road - curious because it is a rare outlier of Old Red Sandstone far from its usual haunts around the Moray Firth. Once up in the heart of Corriemoillie Forest, tall masts began appearing, overtopping even 600m hills nearby. Fionn asked what they were for - 'they're anemometers, for the proposed 'wind farm' here'. "No way !"

The view from Corriemoillie

On the bold wee spine of Cabag, we revolved through a full 360 of fine mountains - the delectable high catenary arcs of the Strathfarrars; Moruisg; the Achnashellach Coulins; Fionn Bheinn; Beinn Eighe behind; the great eastern rampart of the splendid Fannaichs; Beinn Dearg and Am Faochagach; the Vaich Corbetts; and Ben Wyvis close to the east. If we can see them so clear, all within 10-40 km, they will see the turbines. Through the only wide gap, the Cairngorms completed the mountainous skyline. In front of them, brightly lit by the westering sun, the new Farr windfarm was quite distinct despite being 55 km away.

The view of Corriemoillie

A few days later, the final weather window before New Year storm season saw us heading up Ben Wyvis by the tourist route, high cloud cover but still great visibility - virtually all the far west and north peaks from Monar and Torridon up to Ben Hope and Loyal and round to Morven in Caithness. Wyvis may be a smooth lump, but it is one of our finest viewpoints, and becoming very popular as it is so accessible. Throughout the ascent (and even more so the descent) and from the summit, the choicest sector of view is west. The Lochluichart wind factory in Corriemoillie will sit smack dab in the middle of it, pretty much in full view 12 km away. From higher up at least the giant turbines won't break the skyline, but their whiteness and motion will make them inescapable in any decent conditions.

The straw poll

Since the hill was well populated, I decided to accost everyone I could (giving the fell-runner a break) to see what they thought of it. If (even as this WLN is being stuffed into envelopes) I am giving evidence against Beauly-Denny and all it is intended to open up, it might help to know what a few random hillgoers think. The wind was light enough on the ridge to chat for a minute or so, but it's a disheartening process - people go up hills to escape worries and threats and pollsters.

Even so, of about 15 soloists, couples or threesomes asked, only one gave me an in-yer-face 'it wouldn't bother me'; he lived near Beauly, and the rest of the family opted to stay silent. Most troubling is that only one couple knew of the proposals (and had already objected); they lived locally but had to find their work in London; how can decisions on projects with such wide impacts be taken properly if people are simply unaware of them until they go up?

It is nigh-impossible to get a balanced, considered opinion from a snap question with no fore-knowledge and no opportunity to rehearse the arguments (let alone demonstrate what it will actually look like). All the same, it is reassuring that in the course of these fleeting encounters almost the entire spectrum of issues and solutions that we have been so closely engaged in was covered. Most people mentioned the Novar wind installation, visible 8km east of Wyvis, as being pretty acceptable because from up here, a thousand feet higher, it is almost part of an industrial scene - with oil rigs in the Cromarty Firth, installations at Invergordon, Nigg, Ardersier... although at its present dinky scale, pre-expansion, it's a bit like comparing fairy lights with street lamps. Most people would prefer to see wind energy developments concentrated around Novar and the Moray Firth fringes, with sites inside the mountain area seen as a last resort if ever. Most people liked the idea of putting wind factories out in the North Sea, or suggested bleak Buchan around Peterhead, or nearer the cities (why not on the North Downs? said one, that would teach them).

And several people mentioned the proposed pylon lines, unprompted, saying they would be really intrusive. Nearly everyone agreed subsea cables, and harnessing marine energy like the Pentland Firth, would be much better. Several talked about the need to save energy; I warmed to the lady who demanded to know why we should sacrifice our scenery just so people in Surrey can leave their TVs on standby ? No-one mentioned the N-word, since we couldn't quite see Dounreay.

Me, I go with the two old guys from Glasgow, P-reg banger like mine (it was a good year, we agreed back at the forestry car park as the rain came in), sitting in the lee of the summit - on the west side for a change - come up here every year at this time, stay in a hostel; 'what would you think if there was a big wind farm out there, between us and the Fannaichs?' 'Well, it would bother me'. Nuff said.

All these intrusions add up

With Wyvis-goers from Inverness, the Central Belt, England, and the commonwealth countries all snapping happily away, no-one said they would be put off coming again by windfarms etc. That's not the point. The point is that most people's experience will be that little bit diminished, and further diminished by all the other little bits, increasingly with no escape from them, when we didn't need to make all these sacrifices, and didn't know about them until it was too late, and they were all there. Just like all the existing intrusions...

...at the foot of An Cabar, a non-committal member of my sample accosted me, turning the tables, and pointed out that never mind Corriemoillie, the view was already debased by big hydro dams (Glascarnoch and Fannich), and by the ugly, sharp-edged forests and clearfells. As we walked down amicably (the reward of straw-polling), he said he had been thinking about my question, and now felt it was an intrusion too far, that we didn't need to make. We got onto the new-fangled notion of 'rewilding' which I see in the States is heading towards demolition of dams such as Hetch-Hetchy, and as an ex-SEPA man, he could see this in the context of restoring flows to over-abstracted rivers. 'If you could remove one hydro dam which would you choose?' 'Mullardoch, it's too big, that must have been a wonderful through valley to the west in the old days.'