Economic Benefits of Isles Wind Power Plan

AS THEY wait for snow in the Alps, as the great ice-sheet breaks up in Northern Canada and as I listen to another storm battering these islands, I read the letters from Catriona Campbell and Alasdair Allan (January 10).

Ms Campbell’s letter contains the usual misinformation; she writes of a small number of leading politicians and a few leading lights in the council when she must know that the Lewis wind power proposal was debated at length by all elected members of CnES and that each of these councillors has a vote which is of equal value. She further suggests that councillors from other parts of the islands voted in favour of the LWP proposal in order that their areas would benefit from it.

Most of the income from the LWP project will quite properly go to the island of Lewis and only some income from the WIDT – to be dispersed throughout the Western Isles – will reach the Uists and Barra. The six councillors from Uist and Barra, who supported the proposal, did so with the whole of the Western Isles in mind.

Ms Campbell is fulsome in praise of the LibDems and the SNP in the Western Isles. Perhaps she hopes that your readership will be unaware that the SNP group on CnES are articulate supporters of the LWP proposal.

Ms Campbell is also grateful to the RSPB for its opposition to the proposal. Can she explain why the RSPB can design and agree mitigation for Blacklaw and Thanet, but refuses to discuss potential mitigation/ compensation in Lewis?

MrAllan attempts to explain the difference of opinion between himself and the SNP group on CnES with farcical talk of a “quasi- judicial planning process and whipping from on-high”, whatever that means. He claims to have doubts about the longterm community benefit. Could that be because, unlike his party colleagues on the council, he has not studied the community benefit figures, rental agreements, etc, negotiated with the developer? So what exactly does Mr Allan have doubts about?

Is it the 170 jobs during development and construction? Is it the numerous jobs that will be created from the income stream? Is it the GBP1.3m per annum into the Western Isles Development Trust? Is it the GBP3.4m per annum to community estates and crofters? Is it the possibility of the community having a 15per cent stake in the project?

MrAllan needs to be betterinformed about the socio-economic benefits that will f low from this project and which informed councillors’ decision to recommend acceptance to the Scottish Executive.

Orkney and Shetland grasped the opportunities when the oil industry called and are still reaping considerable benefits. We now have an opportunity in the Western Isles to capitalise on the wind energy which blows in abundance here and to ensure a substantial income over the next quarter of a century.

Neither Ms Campbell nor MrAllan has anything positive to say about the proposal and both show a certain contempt for the CnES’s planning procedures. CnES has recently signed a Section 75 agreement with the other major wind developer in the Western Isles. That agreement guarantees a substantial benefits package. If CnES signs a Section 75 agreement with Lewis Wind Power, it will have ensured benefits from these two projects which will have a major economic impact on the Western Isles for many years to come.

Councillor Archie Campbell, Chair, Alternative and Renewable Energy Group, Paiblesgarry, Isle of North Uist.

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