By Richard Burdge

OPPONENTS OF wind farms in Perth and Kinross were furious yesterday when they were denied the oppor-tunity of presenting their arguments to councillors.

The members of the enterprise and infrastructure committee who were to debate a revised wind energy policy and guidelines agreed at the outset of the meeting that they would not allow pressure groups to address them.

The convener, Councillor Alan Livingstone, said there had been an ample opportunity for people to take part in workshops and consultation meetings.

The decision enraged anti-wind-farm campaigners who had packed the public gallery of the council chamber for the meeting.

“This is the most important issue in Perth and Kinross and we weren’t allowed to speak,” said Alison Grave, of Wind Farms Awareness Group.”

She claimed they had received the revised guidelines only a few days ago and had not been given sufficient time to comment on the altered document.

Another person not given the chance to outline his opinions was engineer Graeme Bruce, who lives at Glenfarg.

“It was not a debate and it wasn’t open to the public,” he said of the decision not to hear his comments.

Mr Bruce said that he and his brother Callum, who is also an engineer, had submitted comments which were not acknowledged in the policy document.

In particular he had hoped to point out that in the preferred area identified by council planners for the Ochils lay a Natura 2000 site which would not be suitable for wind farm development under European law.

In the absence of deputations from the public the committee quickly approved the guide policy and guidelines.

Councillor John Hulbert, who moved approval of the document, said the whole ethos fitted with his belief in renewable energy.

The policy states that the council will encourage the development of commercial wind energy schemes which assist in achieving the Scottish Executive’s target of electricity generated from renewable sources.

They identified preferred areas—in sections of the Ochils and land within the triangle bounded by Crieff, Pitlochry and Dunkeld—within which they would look favourably on applications.

Some fine tuning of the preferred areas was agreed by the committee who heard that they were looking at one wind farm development within each of the three preferred areas.

Omitted from the revised policy is the setting on an aspirational local wind energy target, following opposition from the Scottish Executive.

Councillor Jimmy Doig said that the debate had generated as much debate as any other he could remember.

Executive director of planning and transport Jim Irons said preferred areas were just that—any applications would still have a significant number of hurdles to get over before they were approved.

The committee unanimously agreed the revised policy.

Anti-wind-power campaigners Scottish Wind Watch later described Perth and Kinross Council’s newly-adopted wind-power strategy as “a stitch-up and a sell-out to the wind-generators.”

SWW convener Dr Brendan Hamill condemned the document as a betrayal of local action-groups who participated in a series of seminars by planning officers to help frame the council’s strategy.

“In reality every single safeguard— the proposed ceiling of 100MW wind-generating capacity for Perth and Kinross, which the council calculated was our share of the all-Scotland target, together with the limit of 20 times the turbine height as the closest approach to any inhabited building, and the key issue of the cumulative effect of multiple wind-power schemes within a limited area—all of these have been side-stepped in the final strategy document.”

* Plans for a £27 million wind farm in the Touch Hills, overlooking Stirling, got the backing of Stirling Council planning officials yesterday.

Planning permission will be formally issued to developers RDC Scotland a week from today unless a local councillor objects in writing.

Because the wind farm is under 50 megawatts in total capacity it does not need to be referred to the Scottish Executive.