‘It is the trashing of the landscape’: Community upset over plans for Pollie Hill Wind Farm in Strath Brora

Developers of a proposed wind farm in Strath Brora have been told that the local community does not want it.

The feelings of local people were made clear at a meeting in Brora Community Lounge on Tuesday evening to discuss Pollie Hill Wind Farm on Balnacoil Estate, Strath Brora.

A visit to the proposed site in a failed lodgepole pine plantation between the River Skinsdale and the Upper Blackwater had taken place earlier in the day.

Energy companies Coriolis Energy and ESB, are hoping to build a 13-turbine,70MW development, possibly with a battery energy storage system (BESS). The turbines would be up to 200 metres high and would require aviation lighting.

An earlier application for a wind farm on another part of Balnacoil Estate was rejected.

Representatives from Brora and Rogart Community Councils attended Tuesday’s meeting along with members of the public.

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Pollie Hill project manager Lynne Sweeney of Coriolis Energy and a colleague gave a power point presentation on the wind farm which will provide £350,000 per year in community benefit funding with the potential for reduced electricity costs for local residents.

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Discussion covered a range of issues including the route of the overhead power line connecting the wind farm to the grid to the route construction traffic would take and, the impact on wild life

Rogart Community council chairman Frank Roach said 10 of the proposed turbines were in the Rogart area but the scoping report visuals did not show any views from Rogart.

A Strath Brora resident said the impact of existing wind farms - Gordonbush and its extension - in the area was “horrendous” with maintenance workers speeding down the single-track road and throwing food wrappers and drinks cans out of their vehicle windows.

“It is no benefit to us to have a third wind farm”, she said. “It is just ugly and we are just losing anything we have for another wind farm.”

Community councillor Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera, who lives in Strath Brora, said the people in the room were not anti-wind farm, but there were already two wind farms in Strath Brora and a proposed new pylon line would cross Loch Brora at Carrol Rock.

Dr Nick Lindsay, chairman of Clyne Heritage Society, who pointed out sites of interest during the site visit, said: “It is the trashing of the countryside. The biodiversity, the landscape and the archaeology is just beautiful and if a wind farm is there it will change it forever, the concrete will never come out.”

The project is at the scoping stage with two public consultation events scheduled for April.

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