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11 Oct 2012
Windfarms do not have a negative impact on Scotland’s scenery, Alex Salmond has claimed.
The First Minister made the statement as he unveiled a fund to encourage more investment in renewable energy.
This is despite communities across Scotland having serious concerns about windfarm applications on the basis their visual amenity will be destroyed, and concern from councils that far too many submissions are being made.
On windfarms, Salmond said there was no “serious evidence that they are incompatible” and no amount of protest would persuade him otherwise.
He even went onto say: “On the contrary, I think one of Scotland’s attractions is that we are a green country committed to renewable energy.”
Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser, convener of the Scottish Parliament’s energy committee, said:
“This is a staggering defence of windfarms, and not one that will be appreciated by communities across the whole of Scotland.
“If imposing, unsightly turbines were such an aesthetic hit with the people of Scotland, why do they attract such widespread opposition?
“And not only do they risk ruining huge swathes of our countryside, but they don’t even work properly.
“Their energy production is unreliable and intermittent.
“That is why underpinning an entire energy policy on them is dangerous, wasteful and insensitive.”
