Councillors agree to Glenmorie wind farm site visit

COUNCILLORS will embark on a bus trip to the Ardgay area in the New Year to assess the potential impact of a major wind farm which has attracted hundreds of objections.

And local residents will be given the chance to say exactly where they want the bus to stop on its day trip out.

The north planning applications committee postponed a decision on the 34-turbine Glenmorie wind farm application at its meeting in Inverness today in favour of organising a site visit first.

It came after objectors sent a flurry of e-mails to committee members on the eve of the meeting expressing their anger because no visit had been organised.

The committee chairman, Councillor Isobel McCallum (Black Isle), suggested that a site visit be held in January before the debate began and it was unanimously supported by her colleagues,

Several councillors then called for local community councils, which are largely against the huge scheme, to be given an input into the day trip’s schedule, in particular the exact viewpoints from where the site should be examined.

Ardross, Edderton, Ardgay and District and Invergordon community councils are all opposed to the wind farm.

Developer Glenmorie Wind Farm LLP wants to build the 125-metre high turbines – nine less than its original plans.

The development on the Kildermorie and Glencalvie estates had been recommended for approval by the local authority’s planning department and if the committee had rejected the scheme, Scottish Ministers would have been obliged to hold a public inquiry.

The council received 121 objections to the project and just one letter of support.

The final say on the wind farm rests with the Scottish Government, which had received 209 objections and 32 in support.

Cromarty Firth councillor Carolyn Wilson said community councillors would be eager to advise the committee where the site should be viewed from and highlighted the Strathrusdale area as being particularly important.

Fellow ward councillor Mike Finlayson asked Ken McCorquodale, the council’s principal planner, to liaise closely with all the community councils.

* More on this story in Friday’s Northern Times.