The special landscapes of the Scottish Highlands are under threat, and

we urgently need your help.

Scottish and Southern Energy Networks wants to build a line of massive

pylons ((up to 71m/233m tall) from Spittal in Caithness to Beauly in

Inverness-shire. If the line goes ahead, it will mean the industrialisation

of precious, world-famous scenery, the felling of woodland, the

destruction of wildlife habitats, the loss of important archaeological sites,

and a threat to tourist businesses in fragile rural economies.

Local communities have battled in their front rooms, village halls and at

the Scottish Parliament, to halt this headlong rush into desecrating our

landscape which is being undertaken without any over-arching energy

strategy being formulated for the Highlands or Scotland.

Our efforts were backed by Highland Council – our local authority –

which objected to SSEN’s planning application. And better still, this

objection by a statutory consultee has forced the Scottish Government to

hold a Public Inquiry into the proposal.

This is our chance.

This is our opportunity to convince the Inquiry Reporters that SSEN’s

process for developing the proposed route is fundamentally flawed, that

they have not listened to legitimate community concerns, and that the

huge damage the route will cause is not justified. 

We need to get the horrendous Spittal-Beauly pylon proposal rejected

and then work to get the governments in Westminster and Holyrood to

abandon the current private-sector-led renewables free-for-all and instead

work with local communities to produce a national renewable energy

strategy for Scotland.’

We need your help to achieve this – we need to hire a planning

consultant to represent us at the forthcoming Public Inquiry and we don’t

have much time. The Inquiry process is already underway, and hearings

will be taking place before Christmas.

Can you help? Can you send a donation? The bigger budget we have,

the better we can protect our precious landscape, wildlife, heritage and

quality of life. Please help us protect the Scottish Highlands by donating

today.

NB You may wonder why SSEN want to build this pylon line. In short, it’s

because the turbulent winds of the north of Scotland have come to the

attention of multi-national businesses looking to exploit the UK

Government’s headlong rush to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions.

Wind means £££ whether the turbines turn or not – developers get paid

in either event so it’s a no-brainer for them.

In response to the 1000+ wind farm applications now in train in this

region, the UK Government has charged Scottish and Southern Energy

Networks to create this massive pylon network to transport electricity

south.

We’re not against wind power, but we need the opportunity to quantify

the carbon implications of these structures, the economic and

environmental cost of the proposals and to understand the long-term

strategy into which it fits. None of these have been explained to date.

We also need to look at other options which allow local communities to

be partners rather than victims in generating and transmitting renewable

energy.