News release
The Public Local Inquiry investigating the Beauly to Denny 400kV Electricity Transmission Line starts in Perth on Tuesday 6th February. A group of national environmental organisations [1] has banded together under the banner of the Beauly-Denny Landscape Group to put the case for Scotland’s landscapes; to express their concerns to the Inquiry about this major infrastructure proposal and to question the reasons for this development [2].
This project is part of the largest industrial development of the Highlands since the hydro-electric schemes of the mid-20th century, and 220km of new powerline on pylons more than 50m tall [3] will have major implications for the incomparable landscapes of Scotland’s mountainous spine.
The Beauly-Denny Landscape Group is bringing forward evidence on landscape and visual impact of the proposal; the need for the line; the economic justification for it; and the sustainable development argument of transmitting power hundreds of miles from remote and isolated generators to where it’s needed in the centres of population.
Helen McDade, of the John Muir Trust, said “We do not believe the case for the new line has been made. It has been justified on narrowly defined “lowest cost to the consumer” criteria. We need to ask the question ‘is the cheapest option the best value for Scotland?’”
Davie Black, of the Ramblers’ Association Scotland, said “there is a need to look beyond this particular proposal to see how it fits with Scotland’s future power needs. There’s no ‘joined-up’ thinking here – with the prospect of more offshore wind and marine renewables, subsea cabling to where the power is needed is an attractive option. Why then are we wasting time and money arguing over a massive development through difficult terrain which is as far from the coast as it could possibly be?”
David Jarman of the Scottish Wild Land Group said: “Beauly-Denny is the thin end of a very thick and ugly wedge - a wedge of power lines and wind factories - a wedge that is already dividing Highland communities within and between each other, a wedge that will split up the magnificent Highlands that all good Scots cherish until only meaningless fragments of their former sea-to-sea glory remain”.
END
Notes for Editors:
Further details of the case against the pylons are contained in the attached briefing leaflet produced by the Group.
[1] The Beauly-Denny Landscape Group is a banner under which the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland, John Muir Trust, Mountaineering Council of Scotland, National Trust for Scotland, Ramblers Association Scotland and the Scottish Wild Land Group are participating in the Public Local Inquiry for the Beauly to Denny powerline proposal.
[2] Evidence will be given on behalf of the Beauly-Denny Landscape Group by:
John Mayhew, Head of Policy and Planning, National Trust for Scotland; David Jarman, geomorphologist and former Head of Planning West Lothian Council; Stuart Young, construction consultant; Professor Roger Crofts, environmental and management advisor, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and former CEO of Scottish Natural Heritage; Professor Andrew Bain, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and former professor of economics.
The Beauly-Denny Landscape Group also associate themselves with evidence advanced by Sir Donald Miller, former chairman of the South of Scotland Electricity Board, Derek Birkett, former Transmission Grid System Control Engineer and Paul Driver.
The key points of the evidence will include:
- Adverse impact on the landscape caused by the proposed line;
- Adverse impact on the landscape in areas where additional generating capacity would be installed which is only made possible by this line;
- Failure in the Environmental Statement to establish a need for the proposed line;
- Failure to address in the Environmental Statement the poor economic viability of wind turbines in Northern Scotland in the medium and long term future, in relation to the nature and extent of consumer subsidy and the likely consequences on required transmission capacity; and
- Failure to address in the Environmental Statement reasonable alternatives to the proposed line, including failure to explore a sub-sea cable solution.
[3] The proposed 400kV transmission line is 220 kilometres (km) long from Beauly in the north to Denny in the south. It would use approximately 600 steel lattice towers, mostly between 50 and 56m tall, with some reaching 65m tall. Concrete foundations would be required for each tower, along with around 280km of access track (with small quarries to supply roadstone) and construction compounds to store materials. 6 electricity substations would also be required for this development.
