Jim Hume, MSP with Jonathan Meuli, Peter Hadden and Bill Steven

Liberal Democrat MSP for the South of Scotland, Jim Hume, visited Straiton yesterday. He is pictured here by Genoch Inner Hill, just below where turbines are proposed. He was particularly concerned by the scale and number of the developments around the village.

Jim believes “Any progress in the area of wind farm developments must be tailored to fit in with the local environment to avoid any potential damaging cumulative effects. Local circumstances must be given priority when applications for wind farms are being considered. I know from talking with constituents that communities have questioned whether the current situation, which is mainly driven by developers, is truly sustainable in the long term and I believe that the Scottish Government needs to devise a proper strategy. Such a strategy could have the effect of controlling the pace and number of projects across any given area, and would create a more evenly spread distribution of developments, thereby avoiding a concentration in communities like Straiton.”