A CAMPAIGN to fight plans to build the region's most powerful wind farm at North Charlton has been boosted by a landmark decision in Cumbria.

A CONSERVATION charity has claimed that Highland Council's renewable energy strategy could harm the area's landscape.

"The towers are half the height of the hills. The proposal is massively out-of-scale with the surrounding environment and totally contradicts the amenities which surround it. They are marketing this as an environmentally friendly thing but it is not."

“We believe the Scottish Executive should urgently produce in a transparent and consultative way an energy strategy for Scotland including the electricity distribution network. In this way, all relevant factors – social, environmental and economic – can be weighted up throughout Scotland. This would then provide a national framework for planning decisions allowing prioritisation of renewable energy development to less sensitive areas”.

ALL over Scotland anger is mounting about the onward march of supposedly environmentally-friendly power projects which will dramatically alter the Scottish landscape.

Hexham-based AMEC Wind Energy has put in the plans for the 20-turbine scheme on Lord Devonport’s remote Ray estate.

Power chiefs behind the North-East's biggest wind farm have been accused of scaling down their plans in the face of public opposition ( but not by enough to allow the final decision to be made locally.

SIR Walter Scott has been drawn into a fight to stop a wind farm being built at a Lothians beauty spot he admired as one of the most striking scenes he had ever seen.

Failure to build a controversial new power line could kill Scotland's renewable energy plans "stone dead", green businesses have warned.

The Wind Farms Awareness Group before the meeting. The encroachment of wind farms into Perthshire was again halted by councillors as another five proposed schemes were knocked back.

In a Question to the Environment Minister in the National Assembly, Elin Jones, Assembly Member for Ceredigion has challenged Carwyn Jones to give priority to the use of Forestry Commission land for windfarm developments.

Richard Jerrard, from the Campaign Against Wind Turbines, said: "It'll absolutely devastate the whole of our heritage in north Devon.

CAMPAIGNERS fighting proposals to build a wind farm on the outskirts of Penicuik have stepped up their battle against the plans by launching a protest website.

The Prince of Wales believes that wind farms are a "horrendous blot on the landscape" and that their spread must be halted before they irreparably ruin some of Britain's most beautiful countryside. The Telegraph can reveal that Prince Charles, who has an abiding interest in environmental issues, has told senior aides that he does not want to have any links with events or groups that promote onshore wind farms.

They introduced the world to "environmentally friendly" energy, but now some of Europe's "greenest" countries are under pressure to backtrack on wind farms as public anger grows over their impact on the countryside.