No to Swarclett

  Unfortunately the Olrig Hill turbines haven't gone away.  An update can be found at the link below along with details of a 'consultation' event.  There is also information about another awful impending application and associated consultation event.   Go to the  Save Caithness site  for further information.

No further news on Swarclett,  Lochquoy or Olrig Hill just now.  You can keep up with other local matters at Save Caithness  with whom we liaise closely. The coming weeks see various critical infrastructure Planning Applications being determined that will decide the future for Caithness without us ever being consulted on such giant steps. Lots of press coverage at the moment including great work by two Councillors on the perilous state of renewables planning  and a Caithness Courier front page relating to an open letter to all Caithness Councillors from the Save Caithness campaign calling them to account. You can see the letter here .  

There is now an application for a 150m turbine close by at Lochquoy adjacent to the proposed Swarclett turbines.  This means that Bowertower residents would see three giant turbines in the same general area.  We think it is particularly important to submit objections to this proposal.  It contains no BESS element and and there is a real danger that this is part of an attempt to use the turbine as a Trojan horse by it being simpler to deal with than other proposals that contain BESS.  In the pipeline is a possible further application -  for 4 x 200m turbines on Olrig Hill above Durran.  They will be in full view of Bowertower residents.  Hence the importance of objecting to the Lochquoy turbine and keeping alert to what else is going on.   We are working with the tiny community of Durran residents who are facing the prospect of a giant turbine right in their faces.  They have a dedicated page  at savecaithness.org/lochquoy w...

No further news on Swarclett just now but you can keep up with other local matters at Save Caithness .... Also, coming soon is an application for a turbine close by at Lochquoy and we'll be encouraging objections...  

Update:  February ..we pursued why there had been no press notice and now there is...which extends the deadline for objections

  A couple of weeks ago, 'energy investigators' were seen exploring the area to the south of the Lud Stone.  This makes it likely that the landowner has been seduced by the prospect of easy money but we know nothing for sure at this stage.  The map illustrates the area in question along with known turbine applications that we will be objecting to.  As we learn more we'll update the information.  If you know more, please let us know.  Meanwhile here is something that you can do - encourage any non Facebook users you know to sign-up to Save Caithness In that way they will get timely emails and advice on how to object, not just to our local applications, but to others across Caithness. (map image ©Crown Copyright. Reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey)

  The Scottish Government is imposing a ‘seat of the pants’ planning process that has been shown to lead to failure such as with the railways in the 19 th century. Much worse this time though as generous subsidies take away the risk from those simply determined to make money, whatever the cost to the landscape and the residents of the region. In Highland Council’s Onshore Wind Policy Statement Refresh 2021, from the Economy and Infrastructure Committee (12 Feb 2022) responding to the Scottish Government’s Draft Onshore Wind Policy Statement Refresh [1] , some statements are particularly revealing. This one from the Scottish Government is staggering: “ During the consultation on the Policy Statement options for taking a more strategic approach to wind farm development were considered including the identification of new sites where the greatest capacity could be achieved within appropriate landscapes. This was not however taken forward with the preference of continuing w...

  Who will stand up for the r ural residents of Caithness and Sutherland ? Who will stand up for the genuinely rural residents? They have no natural forum and it shows in the way that they are being treated. The way in which residents of Highland Region are classified means that all in Caithness and Sutherland qualify for the category ‘Very Remote Rural’. It doesn’t really represent the true picture as it also includes residents of Wick, Thurso, Dornoch, Brora and other towns and villages that boast more than one shop, street lighting etc. A more accurate picture can be obtained from the 2022 publications from the Public Health Intelligence team of NHS Highlandp [1] . Their classification separates ‘Very Remote Small Towns’ such as Wick and Thurso from ‘Very Remote Rural Areas’. Based on the official figures the number of very remote rural area residents across Scotland is just 2.8% of the entire population. Within Highland Region the figure is 23.8%. For Caithness...

  Spacial Framework for Onshore Wind Energy – 2016 vs 2020 (click on image to enlarge) Rural residents of Caithness to be sacrificed on the altar of net zero? A plan relating to permitted windfarm areas was produced in 2016. It was revised in 2020 – much to the detriment of Caithness rural residents in particular. There may have been consultations on the changes but I don’t remember them. Like most people, in 2020 my mind was on other things like maximising the chance of staying alive It was shocking to see Caithness in 2017, with whole areas covered in turbines.  Now, what seems more shocking is the way in which the county appears to have been targeted as an area for their continued proliferation. The attempt at continuing the relentless march eastwards from the Causewaymire of these triffid like structures seems to be without concern for either the landscape or the people who inhabit the area. It is as though someone has gone out on...

We created this visualisation so that Castletown residents could get a clear idea of why the Bowertower residents are so opposed to the Swarclett Windfarm. The picture illustrates how it would look if a 150m high turbine were placed just over 1500m from the crossroads in Castletown. That’s something the height of a 40 storey building! There are ten properties at Bowertower within that distance. Incredibly, 4 of those properties are only around 800m away from a turbine! For comparison purposes, Swarclett turbines are 30m taller than the ones at Halsary (left hand side of the Causewaymire as your drive south).  The turbines at Stroupster, which overlook Auckengill, are also 120m and there are no residences nearer than around 2000m.  What makes someone think that they can treat Bowertower residents in this way? This visualisation is no dirty trick .  The turbine image was lifted from a distance-equivalent visualisation on the Wind2 website.  If you want di...

At the end of Bowertower Road, there are 10 residences within 1500m of the turbines.  Is this a record?   Sadly, probably not.  That the occupants will suffer from noise and other undesirable effects on their daily lives is beyond dispute.  Others will be affected as well, but these 10 properties will have a view even worse than the one from 1530m shown in The visualisation they didn't want us to see? No one could propose a scheme like this without realising the likely effect on these nearby residents.  What makes people do such a thing?  A simple question to answer - it is greed.  This scheme is no significant step on the road to net zero.  It isn't needed.  It is just a thoughtless, heavily subsidised commercial venture between a land owner and a Wind Farm company.  Even if the planning proposal is rejected, residents will have suffered months of concern and worry about what is to become of their property and their peaceful lives...

Tony Shaw is a Bowertower resident who used to live near the village of Uplawmoor during the period in which the Neilston Community Wind Farm was planned and installed. Here he interviews John West, a former chairman of the Uplawmoor Community Council about the background to this sorry tale, looking for pointers to things that we at No! to Swarclett might do in being faced with a not dissimilar situation. For our readers the context here is that ‘Castletown = Neilston’ and ‘Bower =Uplawmoor’. By making this comparison we make no assumptions on the views of Castletown residents. Simply, we want to see what lessons we can learn from a case where circumstances were quite similar to those that Bower residents find themselves in. That is, being in close proximity to turbines that are being touted as of potential benefit to the residents of a much more distant community - Castletown. Tony : John, thank you very much for finding the time to speak with us on what you remember of the Neilsto...

  If Bower had a Community Council there's every chance that they would be opposing the proposed Wind Farm.  We certainly hope so. What's not so clear is what attitude will prevail from Castletown Community Council.  We've already witnessed some collaboration between Wind2 and the Chairman of Castletown Community Councils.  Is the whiff of money in the air through allocation of Community Benefit funds going to set them on a path that is in direct opposition to the views of those most directly affected?  We hope not. One of our members now finds he is reliving an experience from over 10 years ago.  On that occasion, the village of Neilston in East Renfrewshire cosied up to a wind farm company and helped them place a four turbine farm some miles from Neilston.  Not near Neilston!  Instead siting it immediately overlooking their neighbours, the smaller settlement of Uplawmoor.  You can imagine the effect that had on inter-community relations. Wh...

A Bowertower Curlew Curlews, once very common throughout Caithness, are a species now in serious decline.  They are 'red listed' which is a category that recognises them as in danger of extinction.  It is claimed that populations have decline by around 65% since 1970.  Until 2022  we rarely saw one around our property at Bowertower.  Things changed in 2022 and the curlews appeared with four nest sites surrounding the property.  Their reappearance in 2023 and now this year have been most welcome events. At this time of year Curlews are making all sorts of sounds.  If you want to brush up on your knowledge of the curlew sound repertoire, you can listen to the full range here . Curlews exhibit a very unusual behaviour for a species that is independent and nest territorial.  That is, they don't live in colonies.  Generally they keep to their family group.  However, when it comes to alerting others of danger a disturbed curlew will embark o...

  There are several reasons why we were keen to have a web-site companion for our Facebook Group. provide a place to hold material in readiness for constructing our detailed objection provide an aid to members and others in constructing their individual objections provide more detailed information on why we are doing what we do (such as this article) appeal also to those who don't like/use Facebook gain some insight into how our web site material is accessed and used The main purpose is to provide a place to build material that might be both relevant and useful when later constructing our detailed objections to the proposals.  By making it more widely available we hope it will also be useful to others as they construct their letters of objection.  Many of the items that will appear will have some relevance to formulating later objections. Once the planning application has been submitted we will add a series of articles and clarify the thinking behind the main areas of obj...

We recount the story of our struggle to get the wind farm company, Wind2, to make available what we consider the most relevant visualisation of the proposed development.  That is, the view that those residents closest to and most affected by the scheme would see each time they returned along Bowertower Road to their homes.. Three times we asked Wind2 to provide their visualisation of the turbines from Bowertower Road!  We know that one existed as it had been on display at their belatedly organised public information event of July2023 in Bower Community Centre.  After the meeting we requested a copy, so that those who had been unable to attend could see what would be dominating their landscape.  They were unable to provide it.  Their response claimed  "Our consultants are still processing the full set of visualisations after photography was taken from agreed viewpoints earlier this summer. There is a lot of processing and hours required to create these vi...