Knockskae – rightly refused

The unspoilt Girvan Valley near Straiton

Just one of the beautiful views we are fighting to save along with protecting people’s homes from wind farm disturbance

Local people fought for it to be refused, the Planning Department recommended refusal and the Regulatory Planning Committee met today and unanimously refused it.

Henry Anderson, Chair of the Community Council was first up, stressing that the overwhelming view of the local community was against this development. Next Glen Heggs, Vice Chair of Save Straiton for Scotland, spoke about the site selection and impact on homes followed by Jeanette Heggs who spoke about the value of the conservation villages. Gordon Ferrie and Bea Holden talked about Straiton’s historical features and the impact on the economy respectively. Whirly Marshall explained eloquently how the development contravened the Wind Capacity Study and the Local Development Plan. Eoghan Baird spoke about the impacts of Shadow Flicker on homes and Colin Nisbet raised deep concerns over contamination of water supplies. Sandy Millar pointed out serious deficiencies in the noise assessments. Barbara Anderson, Isla Cruickshanks and Christine Millar, who all live close to the proposed development, spoke passionately about how this would impact upon their lives if built, and how even the planning application has cast a shadow over their lives.

Finally former Chair, Bill Stevens, told the packed chamber how the people did not support the proposal. Including our petition, over 3,000 people have objected.

All the Councillors agreed the Carrick area has reached saturation point for wind farms, one stating “enough is enough”.

And we agree.

We want your views!

Mail1South Ayrshire Council are in the process of producing guidance for wind farm development. Earlier they invited comments on a range of wind farm issues to shape this guidance. We’ve looked at some of the comments and note that quite a number of developers took part to get their point of view across. Some of those views include “an arbitrary 2km should not be drawn round each settlement”, “Landscape Character 17b is only appropriate for turbines 50-70m in height however this has been shown to be too conservative” It’s hardly surpsrising that these were made by RES who want to erect 149m turbines less than 2km from Waterside and Patna!

There are many other examples where developers appear to have a blatant disregard for communities, our precious landscape, planning guidance and the landscape study by SNH.

Please follow the link here to view the draft guidance. The team at Save Straiton are producing a comprehensive response to this draft and we would appreciate your views as well. Even if you only want to comment on one aspect of the draft guidance which you feel strongly about please let us know – and leave your own comment too of course!

Developers are using this opportunity to get their views across and have guidance written in their favour We must get our message to the Council: 2km is the very minimum distance from homes (turbines are very much larger than a few years ago), light flicker and noise must be assessed properly, river valleys should be protected, the Landscape Capacity Study should be strictly adhered to and most importantly individual homes should be given the same status as villages. There are many other issues of course but we feel these are some of the most critical.

We’re looking forward to receiving your comments.