CaSHWIG January 2024 Newsletter
Happy New Year to everyone. We all could do with some respite from the rain. It has been a while since the last general update from the Correen and Suie Hills Windfarm Information Group, so here goes.
There will be a Donside Community Council meeting at the Alford and District Men’s Shed to be held on 9 January at 19:30. It has been proposed this will be a single-issue meeting focussing on the proposed windfarm. Please make this a date in your diary. It is important that councillors understand the level of public interest in this development. Please come if you can, and bring along anyone who could possibly be interested in this development. On 22 January the Bennachie Community Council will be holding their monthly meeting at 19:00 at St Dronstan’s Church Hall, Insch, another one for your calendar.
Since our last update in early December there has been a lot going on. The CaSHWIG has now got a formal constitution, has formed a core team and has arranged work streams based upon the skills within the group. The group now includes people from the Alford side of the hills which is a relief as we are more representative, and it has provided some excellent resources and skills. We have a powerful core group now, but we do need more help.
A team is developing a communications plan which will enable us to reach out and provide information to as many people as possible. This will include community meetings organised by CaSHWIG.
The website (www.cashwig.org) and email address (info@cashwig.org) are now up and running. As we are still new, the content is restricted to a summary of the development, and links to relevant articles and interesting facts. Each link has a summary so it will be very easy pick and choose which you read.
There are very interesting articles on the current over-capacity of Scottish windfarm generation which makes it puzzling why there is so much focus on placing more wind farms in inappropriate locations. For example in 2022 consumers paid windfarm operators £215m to NOT produce electricity. There is an article on the concerns raised by research and academia on the unsuitability of the guidance on noise generated from large diameter wind turbines. Another article highlights the impact that the logging required of the Clashendarroch windfarm extension will have on the critically endangered Scottish Wildcat - logging which has started. I encourage you all to read some of these at your leisure.
A discipline that the group is lacking is social media management. It is all very well having a website, however, it is via social media that most information and public engagement occurs. We badly need someone to set up and manage our presence on Facebook, X and Instagram. If you know of anyone who could do this, please ask them to contact us.
Work has started opening a bank account to fund activities such as publicity, leaflets and engaging consultants as required. The delay in opening an account comes from the administration within the bank, and the festive period is slowing things down. Having an active account will allow us to start fund raising. It will probably be the end of January / early February before a Fund-me, or similar, page is up and running.
Links have been established with voluntary groups in Aberdeenshire to give advice and help with activities. It has been a bit of a shock to us finding so many people who were not aware of this proposal. It is also a disappointing how many people feel that approval will be inevitable. We remind everyone that two major windfarm developments have been rejected in the past 5 months.
The initial consultation period for the proposed development closed before CaSHWIG could have any impact, and as we are not a formal consultee may have had little impact anyway. The Ministers Scoping Opinion was posted on the ECU website (the development is ECU00004951) on 18 December. This opinion was informed by a large list of consultees, and resulted in a significant list of additional studies and works required which the developers, EDF and Force 9 Energy, had omitted.
It was disappointing that 12 of the organisations defined as consultees that did not even reply to the request for comment. This is probably because these organisations just cannot keep up with the volume of windfarm applications in Aberdeenshire and the resources required to comment on 120+ pages of technical details in a short period of time. We will encourage all consultees to be ready to comment on the final planning application, should this development get that far.
We have a small team of subject matter experts studying the original scoping documents. There are many references to materials and studies that are not currently available to the consultees, or the public, that have been used to justify the scope of the documents lodged. We will be making specific requests for access to this information in the next day or so to determine if all relevant aspects have been appropriately addressed. The team of experts are ready and waiting to examine this information when it is supplied.
While we have some quickly assembled and somewhat amateur posters, we are developing graphics which will better explain the proposed development. You may start to see these around the area shortly.
We have drafted a flyer and poster that will be placed in local shops, filling stations, etc. These are intended to provide more information for people who are still unaware of the proposed development and to let them know how to join the group. Once again you can do your bit to encourage people to get interested.
We have engaged a photographer who will create photomontages from places we have selected around the location of the proposed development. Specialised software is required if they are to be used in any comment. It is hoped these photomontages will provide more information to help understand the visual impact of the proposal. Again, these will be available in community meetings.
We have established links with the Hill of Fare Windfarm Information Group. The planning application for this development is about 13 months ahead of the Correen Hills application so we can learn a lot from this group. The Hill of Fare proposed development is in the final planning application stage. They have very generously guided us, allowing us to achieve what we have as a group. We encourage everyone to lodge an objection to this development. Have a look at the HoFWIG website (Hill of Fare Windfarm Information Group -) for details on how to do this and access to the links.
That is probably enough for now. We will update on progress monthly, and more often if something big happens.
Again, we wish you all a very happy new year. Let’s hope we see some sense appearing.
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