The Scottish Conservatives are hoping anger at windfarms will work against the SNP at this week’s local council elections.
Party leader Ruth Davidson accused First Minister Alex Salmond’s party of ”ignoring” concerns about turbines as he pursues his energy targets.
She highlighted evidence that Scotland and Fife in particular has seen a rapid growth in windfarm numbers since the SNP came to power in 2007. And she claimed a vote for the SNP in the council poll would be a vote for more windfarms.
”Voters should be very clear that a vote for the SNP in these council elections is one for sticking more windfarms on people’s doorsteps,” she said. ”Alex Salmond is putting his love affair for wind energy ahead of the genuine concerns of local communities about the siting of windfarms.”
But SNP MSP Mark McDonald accused the Tories of hypocrisy.
”Their very credibility on this issue is blown away by their very own party leader,” he said. ”Only last week David Cameron was boasting about the UK playing ‘a leading role at the forefront of the green energy revolution’ and that his Government had doubled the amount of renewables. And last November he was saying it was a ‘vital’ industry and ‘a great industry for people in Scotland’.
”Yet at the same time his very own party are attacking green energy developments. They can’t have it both ways.”
The Scottish Government has set a target for the equivalent of 100% of Scotland’s electricity demand to be produced from renewable resources by 2020.