THE boss of the energy giant behind plans to build a massive wind farm off Scotland’s west coast has been invited to visit one of the island communities it will impact – and sent a personalised version of the film Local Hero to underscore the point.
The people of Iona – a small island off the south-west of Mull with around 170 residents – have written to the head of the Spanish energy firm Iberdrola raising concerns about plans to construct up to 144 turbines “each the height of the Eiffel Tower, in waters that define this coastline and our islands”.
The Iberdrola-owned ScottishPower Renewables is aiming to construct the 2GW MachairWind project across 450 square kilometres of ocean due west of Colonsay.
A website for the project includes an interactive map showing what the turbines would look like from the shores of various islands. It is understood that the firm aims to build either 91 turbines which are 335m high, or 144 which are 260-280m high.
In a letter to Iberdrola executive chairman Ignacio Sanchez Galan sent alongside a copy of the film Local Hero – about an American oil executive whose plan to buy a tiny Scottish village is gradually undone by the realisation that some things are worth more than money – the community of Iona said: “We appreciate this is a work of fiction, made over forty years ago, and that MachairWind is a different proposal in a different era.
“But we believe the film speaks to something that remains true: that the value of a place like this, to the people who live here, to the wildlife that depends on it, and to the visitors, artists and filmmakers it continues to draw from around the world, is not always visible in a planning application or a financial model.”
The letter goes on: “We understand that difficult trade-offs are sometimes unavoidable. But we believe those trade-offs deserve to be weighed with the fullest possible understanding of what is at stake here, and we do not believe that understanding can be gained from documents alone.”
Finlay MacDonald, a boat skipper who has sailed the waters around Iona, Staff and the Treshnish Isles for 30 years, added: “Local Hero is more than forty years old, so we don’t expect everyone at Iberdrola to have seen it. That’s exactly why we’re sending it.
“It says in ninety minutes what we’ve been trying to say in planning documents for months: that some places are worth more than any numbers a company can put in front of a board.”
“Every big company today says the right things about sustainability and stakeholder engagement,” said Joanne MacInnes, who lives on an Iona farm facing the site of the windfarm.
“This is a chance for Iberdrola to show what that means in practice, not just in a report. You can’t claim to be a responsible operator and then treat these islands as a line on a spreadsheet.”
Iberdrola and ScottishPower Renewables have both been approached for a response.
