Tongue Community Council backs controversial plan to install Sutherland Spaceport antenna park on the top of Ben Tongue
A North Sutherland community council is backing a controversial plan to move the antenna park for Sutherland Spaceport from the main spaceport site at the A’Mhoine peninsula to the top of Ben Tongue.
Tongue, Melness and Skerray Community Council has come out in favour of the proposal which has attracted considerable opposition including an objection from billionaire Danish businessman and local estate owner Anders Holch Povlsen.
Objectors believe that the antenna on the summit of the mountain would be visually unsightly and detract from the surrounding landscape, and that maintaining the park would result in increased traffic, noise and light pollution in the area.
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The community council decided its stance after a delegation of senior representatives from Orbex - the rocket manufacturing company that is developing and will operate Sutherland Spaceport - attended its meeting at the Kyle Centre, Tongue, on Tuesday, July 17.
In attendance were chief of spaceport operations Lesley Still, launch programme director John May, who is understood to be based in Newbury, and spaceport preparations and support manager Kirsteen Mackay.
Orbex was granted planning permission for Sutherland Spaceport in August 2020 and construction work began in May last year.
Mr May told the community council that the reason for the move was that the top of Ben Tongue offered a much better view of the horizon for monitoring rocket trajectories than the one from the launch facility.
He said the proposed dishes would be five metres in diameter compared to the 20-metre high telecommunications infrastructure already in place on the summit of the mountain. The dishes would be “collapsible” and would only be erected on launch days and for testing purposes.
The existing track to the summit would be used with a temporary track built only to move the equipment. No excavation or vibration would be required as the equipment would be secured using a rock anchoring technique.
Mr May said that a ‘Visitor Management Plan’ would be being drawn up and that people would be prevented from climbing or driving up Ben Tongue on launch days.
The first rocket launch from Sutherland Spaceport is expected to take place next summer and will be the only launch that year with two launches planned for 2026. The original planning permission allows for 12 launches a year.
The minutes of the community council meeting state: “It was agreed that Colin McDonogh (community council secretary) would write a letter to Highland Council (planning) saying that, while being aware that some opposition to the spaceport existed in the community, the council supported the current application.”
Objector Rachel Broughton, who lives at the foot of Ben Tongue, said Orbex was obviously concerned about the level of opposition to the Ben Tongue plan.
She said: “Orbex are worried enough to send their bigwigs Lesley Still and John May to the far north on a Tuesday evening to join Kirsteen Mackay in trying to persuade the Tongue, Melness and Skerray Community Council to back their unpopular plan to desecrate Ben Tongue.
“Did the council take a vote? We are not told. Was the vote taken in the presence of the Orbex high and mighty? We are not told.
“Their plan to drive a new section of road through an area rich in protected species in order to build on the summit of Ben Tongue is proving unpopular. Orbex are right to be jittery. Support for the spaceport is melting away.”
The fresh spaceport planning application has so far attracted seven objections and six letters of support.
Melness Crofters Estate chairperson Dorothy Pritchard wrote in her letter of support: “It is important that Orbex’s operational requirements are met in order for the spaceport to deliver the best possible outcomes for the environment, our community and for Orbex themselves as they strive to become the first carbon-neutral spaceport in the world.”
The planning application is expected to come before the North Planning Application Committee next month.
