News / Confusion over land ‘sales’ to Viking Energy
WIND farm developer Viking Energy has categorically denied that it has spent £33 million buying up large areas of land in Shetland.
A document issued by the www.myhouseprice.com website suggests that Shetland Islands Council has received almost £9 million from the sale of the Busta Estate and that the Symbister Estate had been bought by Viking Energy for just short of £16 million.
The print-out, which lists 23 separate transactions involving Viking Energy, has created a few raised eyebrows among islanders and prompted a number of councillors to ask some urgent questions of its leadership.
Despite being contacted by Shetland News, www.myhouseprice.com, based in the Ayrshire town of Largs, has not responded to calls for clarification.
It looks as though the company’s computer has confused sales with lease agreements and has subsequently multiplied rent payments with the duration of leases to come up with a sale price.
The 23 ‘sales’ include some large transactions such as almost £5 million for the Burrastow Estate, £493,220 for the Vementry Estate and £8,995,160 for the council-owned Busta Estate.
The council’s political leader Gary Robinson strongly denied any suggestion that the estate had been sold. Such a move would have required a decision by the full council, he said.
“The council has not sold any land to Viking Energy. The document is clearly wrong on a number of fronts.
“The only land that has recently been sold from the Busta Estate was in Brae for a plot to build a new hotel,” he said.
Henry Anderton of Burrastow Estate also confirmed that no sale had taken place. He said the only written arrangement in place was an “exclusivity agreement” which allowed the wind farm developer to plan part of the wind farm on his land.
Viking Energy was somewhat taken by surprise by this week’s development and only learned from the local media that it had apparently become the isles’ largest landowner overnight.
A spokeswoman for the company, which is part owned by the Shetland community through the Shetland Charitable Trust, said: “There is absolutely no question at all: this is not a purchase of land.”
She added: “The property transactions mentioned are lease agreements that have been signed with various landowners.
“It is possible that the sums quoted could be the total value of the leases which would be the annual rental payment multiplied by the number of years’ duration rather than the cash value of the transaction.”
The company said it was continuing to look into the issue to clarify what had gone wrong.
Viking Energy has signed a series of lease agreements with estate owners for its 103-turbine wind farm for which it received planning permission earlier this year.
As part of these agreements, landowners and crofters will each be paid on an annual basis £1,350 per megawatt installed on their land, plus four cent of the income generated by these turbines.
The www.myhouseprice.com document can be found here.
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