New Scottish Planning Policy could end "sledgehammer to crack a nut" approach to farm scale wind turbines

Scottish farm scale turbine maker Gaia-Wind today reacted to the Scottish Government’s vision for planning in Scotland.

CEO Johnnie Andringa said:

“This important document protects Scotland’s scenic areas and wild land from inappropriate development and that is good news. It should also help local planning bodies in scaling down their often over complex and costly approaches to small scale wind turbine applications.

“The policy aims to support ‘sustainable economic growth and the transition to a low carbon economy’. Our farm scale turbines largely serve the rural domestic, farm, school or small business based sector where a combination of the Feed-In Tariff and renewable energy supply bring affordable energy independence to thousands.

“Many local planning schemes use a “sledgehammer to crack a nut” level of prescription in handling small scale wind turbine applications, often with the same requirements as those for large scale wind farms. Hopefully this new policy document will support them in finding a more balanced and appropriate level of scrutiny for what is often a single machine the size of a mature tree.”