Election letters 2019 / Proliferation of wind farms
I see in Shetland News that Unst Community Council are in favour of the North Yell wind farm on the basis that the North Isles may possibly get payments of somewhere between £1 to £1 million (Unst Community Council shows support for proposed Yell wind farm; SN, 16 August 2019).
However there is no guarantee of any pay-out after the shareholders take their cut, and if there is none they won’t notice the devastation of the most unspoiled wild land in Shetland anyway.
As far as the rest of Shetland is concerned; if planning is granted for the North Yell wind farm there will be visually a practically unbroken chain of turbines stretching 70 kilometres from Gloup to Lerwick:
- Footprint area North Yell wind farm (29 turbines, height 200 metres) 22.12 sq km Yell = 10.5 per cent of Yell;
- Footprint area of Beaw Field Yell (17 turbines, height 145 metres) 11.3 sq km = 5.3 per cent of Yell;
- Footprint area of Viking Energy wind farm (103 turbines, height 155 metres) 129 sq km = 13.3 per cent of mainland Shetland;
- Footprint area of Mossy Hill windfarm (12 turbines, height 145 metres) 10 sq km = 1 per cent of mainland Shetland.
Total wind farm footprint area (mostly on active blanket bog) = 172.42 sq km.Total area of Shetland is 1468 sq km; thus total wind farm footprint area = 11.7 per cent of Shetland’s land area.
I hear now that the possibility of wind farms south of Bridge End, on Burra, are being investigated just to extend the proliferation of wind farms still further south.
Proliferation that we were assured back in the day by Viking Energy and Shetland Islands Councillors would never happen.
Proliferation over carbon sequestering moorland that the SNP and Green and some independent wannabe MSPs seem happy to endorse.
Allen Fraser
Hamnavoe
Burra
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