Chamber and committees

Amanda Rofe submission of 9 June 2021

PE1864/X - Increase the ability of communities to influence planning decisions for onshore windfarms

I fully support the above petition for the following reasons:

1. Due to the huge, and increasing, number of planning applications for industrial-scale onshore wind farms, local residents have become unable to properly assess or respond to them. Unlike the professional developer, who employs highly skilled staff in a modern office environment, locals are forced to fall back on their own resources which may only consist of access to the internet via a very slow broadband connection. There are a wide range of highly technical issues to deal with such as noise, hydrology, aviation obstruction or the environmental impact. Local residents are on the back foot from the word go with no professional representative, a short period of time to make representation and hundreds of documents to read through and comment on.

2. Industrial-scale wind farms have a major impact on local communities and while the benefits are pushed to the fore, the negative effects of such developments are not sufficiently taken into consideration. There is no proper discussion of the downside to hosting a wind farm such as the fact that turbines are becoming larger and are perceived to be closer to villages and settlements than in the early days of wind farm development when there were fewer in number and they were much smaller. The onus should not be on local residents, with a dearth of resources, to research the pitfalls.

3. The fact that the Scottish Government is able to override decisions made by local planning authorities leaves local residents feeling completely powerless. There have been too many times when a council has refused a wind farm application only to find that the government overrules that decision and allows the development to go ahead. What is the point of making representative to local councils when council decisions may be overruled? Local councils know what is best for the local area and, I believe, should have the final say.

4. Even when responding to a planning application, it is widely believed that there is little weight given to the concerns of residents compared to that given to developers. This leaves many locals feeling exhausted, demoralised and completely overwhelmed.

5. When a planning inquiry goes ahead, local residents are faced with a government inquiry officialdom which can be complex and confusing.

While wind farm developers employ legal representation, local residents are left to make the best of a bad job and fork out a huge sum of money for a barrister or simply represent themselves. Taking part in an inquiry such as this requires a thorough knowledge of digital technology and the elderly and disabled will often be at a huge disadvantage.

If representing themselves, locals may be vulnerable to bullying by wind farm developers. In my view, this was evident at the Arecleoch Extention inquiry this year when the developer's representative cross-questioned local residents and a local council official.

In my opinion, the general line of questioning was clearly aimed at discrediting and humiliating the objectors. Allowing this type of behaviour only serves to discourage anyone from taking part in the planning process and was probably done for this very reason. Those objecting to a planning application should not be made to feel like a criminal held to account in a court of Law.