'The new Scottish Clearances': Rural communities 'abandoned' in industrial-scale changes under net zero push

Two decades on from when wind farms were first proposed in a community in East Renfrewshire, little remains of what the area once was.

“It’s a wasteland now,” says Aileen Jackson, from Scotland Against spin (SAS), a group that receives between 50 and 100 requests a week from residents across the country asking for advice on how to handle applications.

“We were the first to be in this when there was no more room for turbines in the Central Belt.”

The council area, which is about 67 square miles, is home to the UK’S largest onshore wind farm to date, Whitelee. The development holds 215 turbines on Eaglesham Moor and has plans for battery storage, a hydrogen plant and some solar panels.

Ms Jackson, whose home is less than one mile from turbines, said it makes the local authority home to the highest concentration of wind farms per area in Scotland.

Scottishpower Renewables (SPR) said some 100,000 visitors visit the wind farm each year, which has 81 miles of tracks used by communities for walking, running, cycling and horse riding. A spokesperson for the company said it had provided community benefit funding of over £17 million and its own Whitelee’s visitor centre had been awarded the Green Flag for tourism.

But Ms Jackson said the community “is only seeing the tip of the iceberg.”

“It’s not what we’ve got at the moment,” she said. “It’s what’s to come that’s terrifying.

“What really upsets us as well is that East Renfrewshire was the recreational lung for the people who live in the city. But now they have no green space left, unless they want to go to and walk among wind turbines. “I am 66. I am never going to see these hills again without this clutter. It’s devastating.”

With no more space for large wind farms, East Renfrewshire council is receiving applications for single turbines.

“We are now getting a new wind farm by stealth it seems,” Ms Jackson said.

“They are scattered everywhere and are all different sizes. All have different rotation speeds, which means they all make different noises.”

On the other side of Whitelee, in the next door region of East Ayrshire, residents say they have the highest concentration of industrial-sized turbines sited around towns.

“I can see 27 turbines from my bathroom window,” said Dr Rachel Connor, who claimed Whitelee caused local water contamination, which was later dismissed by SPR.

“We’ve lost five rural properties in our area due to the wind farms. They were all running as family homes and they’ve all either been demolished or left to become derelict.

“It’ s the new scottish clearances. If I honestly believed it made a difference, then I would suck it up.

“I just think we’re being sold a pup. All this time and we are still paying through the nose for bills.”

Ms Jackson and Dr Connor, among other campaigners, have said they are the canary in the coalmine for what is to come for other communities as Scotland ramps up its onshore renewable energy developments. In the Scottish Borders, those in Newcastleton, a village of about 750 people, have been working together to make their remote mainland community more resilient.

“When there are power cuts here, we’re left for days,” said Jim Lewis, head of Newcastleton Community Council. “We often feel abandoned.”

But the village, he said, was now feeling even more powerless in the face of what residents have described as “a cluster bomb” of net-zero developments from onshore wind to forestry.

“We’re a small community and we’re being turned into an industrialised area,” Mr Lewis

said. “Rural communities are getting [run] over. The numbers that are yet to come are scary and people are feeling scared about the impact. It’s the cumulative effect we’re starting to notice.”

The south of Scotland is home to more than a fifth of scotland’ s existing on shore wind capacity, a South of Scotland Enterprise (SOSE) study found. In Dumfries and Galloway, locals have nicknamed an area “wind-farm alley” because of the sheer number of turbines.

Some communities have felt supported by community benefit funds, which are not mandatory for developers.

In New Luce, a pub has flourished thanks to money from SPR’S Kilgallioch wind farm and some residents are given taxi vouchers and about £200 off bills each year.

Karen Stewart, who is on the board of the Kilgallioch Community Fund, previously told The Scotsman the benefits of the community funding outweighed the disadvantages of the wind farms because money was coming into the community. Others, however, have argued the funding is more a bribe and is disproportionate to the impact the projects have on the landscape they call home.

The UK Government is consulting on the potential introduction of a mandatory community benefits scheme for low carbon energy infrastructure.

Without this in place, Scottish councillors have previously said developers can “make empty promises and let communities down”.

Up in the Highlands, however, communities have taken this further, saying they feel neglected from the outset.

Earlier this month, ministers, led by Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes, met to discuss are search report that proposed a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to make the Highlands a centre for renewable energy, and in the course of it create “tens of thousands of jobs” and secure £100 billion worth of investment.

But organisers have been accused of keeping the event “low key” and not inviting local voices and tourism bodies to it.

Highland councillor Helen Crawford, who attended the discussion, said :“What struck me really forcibly was the absolute lack of any discussion regarding what is the backbone of the Highland economy, which is tourism.

“It was not evident that it has any way been considered in terms of what the impact would be and that voice is essentially silent from the table.

“Likewise there was no voice for our communities and what is the compensation impacted communities are going to get from the loss of value of their homes.

“There was no attempt to bring these people into the conversation .” Scottish Government figuresshow there are 82 live applications and an extra 71 ins coping for section 36 on shore wind farms.

These are large-scale wind farms that can generate capacityexceeding 50 megawatts and require specific consent from ministers.

The Scottish Government said it is analysing responses to a public consultation on community benefit guidance.

Sir Keir Starmer’s administration has been urged to put home grown energy“at the heart” of the UK’S economic, security, and climate goals, with a leading trade body pointing to a potential £200 billion investment windfall.

Offshore Energies UK said a new national energy strategy that eschews imports in favour of home-produced energy would help protect British industry, cut bills, and meet crucial climate targets.

With the UK Government currently drawing up a new industrial strategy, OEUK’S chief executive, David Whitehouse, warned that “decarbonisation must not mean de industrialisation ”, and said offshore energy firms were prepared to invest hundreds of billions of pounds this decade provided there is the “right investment climate” and “clear backing”.

In what it describes as a blueprint for a “modern, industrial Britain powered by homegrown energy”, the trade body called on Labour to harness the “full potential” of the UK’S domestic energy resources, including oil and gas, and stressed that the North Sea was “uniquely placed” to support Britain’s energy future, with the second largest offshore wind capacity in the world, and the geology to store over 78 gigatons of carbon dioxide.

Ahead of the OEUK’S conference later this month, where it will scrutinise and discuss the key issues facing energy producers in the North Sea, Mr Whitehouse said it was vital that the UK Government worked alongside industry, and called for a more “streamlined” regulatory landscape. “If we want to build worldleading products, grow British business, and create thousands of high-quality jobs across the UK, then we must put homegrown energy at the heart of the nation’s economic, security and climate ambitions,” he said.

“Decarbonisation must not mean deindustrialisation. Output in our energy intensive industries is at a 35-year low, yet our North Sea has the capability to provide all the energy it needs now and in future. In a world where we should be protecting our sovereign capabilities, that is not good enough. Government and industry must work together to bring down energy costs while protecting the dividend that only home-produced energy can bring in terms of taxes paid, jobs supported, and value added to the economy. By choosing homegrown energy over imports, our plan shows a path where the UK can achieve its climate goals and grow the economy.”

OEUK said that a pivot towards home-produced energy would support UK supply chain firms as well as operators to developers to win new work in offshore wind, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen projects, as well as oil and gas.

Such a strategy, it explained, would add an additional £150bn of value to the UK economy and support 200,000 jobs through backing the “responsible production” of an additional three billion barrels of domestic oil and gas while meeting UK climate goals.

It added that the domestic energy prices in the UK are the highest among G7 nations, with nearly 40 per cent of energy imported.