Massive Wind Farm Proposal Meets Strong Opposition

(I-Newswire) December 17, 2004 - The proposal by Amec and British Energy is for a 234 turbine, 702MW wind farm on the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland. The turbines will be 140m high to the tip of the blade and be supported by a large concrete foundation. The application also includes 167km of roads, nine electrical substations, a control building, nine wind monitoring masts, 210 pylons supporting a network of overhead lines, five rock quarries, eight temporary compounds and four concrete batching plants. All this will take roughly three years to build.

Who Are We?
We are ordinary local people

We are a group of Westside residents, all of us born and brought up here. We are not normally campaigners, but prefer a quiet life. However, the scale and industrial nature of the massive windfarm development proposed for North Lewis, and the fact that we love our local moorland and the whole of our native island, has galvanised us into action.

We do not claim to be experts on windfarms, although we have now done a huge amount of reading on the subject! Please feel free to question and investigate for yourself any of the facts in this leaflet, but please also remember to do the same for any information you get from the developers, or from the politicians backing them.

Who Is Behind This Proposal?
Big business, politicians and landowners.

1) Amec and British Energy (partners in a new company, Lewis Windpower.) "Amec is a multinational construction company that, despite producing a sustainability report and policies, continues to be involved in a series of controversial and destructive projects that threaten its reputation. The company is subject to campaigns at local, national and international levels, because of its activities in the UK, North America, South America and Africa." Taken from Friends of the Earth, Amec Counter Report, 2002. British Energy's vision statement taken from their own website is "to be the world's leading nuclear energy company".

2) Politicians. The government is attempting to meet its Kyoto energy saving targets, and appears to see wind power stations as a major way of achieving that aim.

Brian Wilson MP, who, according to John Price of Amec, first invited the company to Lewis to look at the Arnish yard. Mr Wilson has had many contacts with Amec over the years, in his previous position as Minister for Industry, Energy and Construction, and in his present job as the UK special representative on trade and reconstruction in Iraq. Mr Wilson is also the founder of the West Highland Free Press.

Calum Macdonald MP and Alasdair Morrison MSP have made clear that they are fully behind the proposals to turn huge areas of the Lewis moorland, close to villages, into industrial windfarms run by outside companies.

Convenor Alex Macdonald, Vice Convenor Angus Campbell, and other councillors (especially Labour councillors) on Comhairle nan Eilean Siar. Up until the recent public meeting on the Amec proposal in Bragar, our council representatives had managed to keep very quiet about what is potentially the biggest change to the environment of Lewis since the peatlands were formed. "Surely it is the role of our councillors, MP and MSP, whom we elected, to represent the views of the community and not their own views." – quote from Charlie Stewart, Bragar meeting, 13th April.

3) The landlords. Stornoway Trust, Barvas Estate and Galson Estate have already signed legally binding Heads of Agreement with Amec/British Energy. Although the turbines will be on village common grazings and peat cutting areas, shareholders were not asked for their consent.

What Is Being Proposed?
The industrialisation of our landscape.

This will be Europe's largest windfarm. It will stretch from Ness in the north, follow the moor side of the road all the way down to Barvas, then take over both sides of the road across the Barvas moor. Just before Newmarket it will curve off between that village and the Barvas hills, and south to the Pentland road. If you turn off at Barvas, the same windfarm will be before you all the way to Bragar.

How to help
As a group we have put our hands into our pockets to fund – leaflet printing, copying of videos, hiring of halls and equipment, placing ads in local press as well as spending time leafleting houses, time given up for telephone surveys and time spent on the computer – the list is endless.

It has now come to the stage where we can no longer keep funding ourselves in this way. We have recently opened a bank account in the name of "Mointeach gun Mhuilean" with the Clydesdale Bank. We would greatly appreciate if you could donate some money to our group, to support us with our cause. Any amount would be gratefully appreciated.

Moran taing

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