What will Argyll Array do to Tiree
Over 150 people attended a public meeting on 15th June to discuss the likely impacts of the proposed offshore wind farm at Skerryvore. Tish MacKinnon, chair of the Tiree Community Development Trust, led the meeting and Lloyd Gudgeon, the Trust’s Manager, made a short presentation. Ralph Thornton and Morna Cannon from the developers Scottish Power Renewables were on hand to answer questions, as were Councillors Len Scoular and Donald McIntosh, along with several senior officials from the Planning Department, HIE, the Health Board and the Police.
The wind farm will be huge, costing £6 billion to build (at todays prices) and estimated to provide about 20% of Scotland’s electricity needs. The impact it will have on Tiree will also be huge, with an influx of people coming to work for the wind farm, new housing, much wider roads and bigger harbour and more jobs. It will also bring helicopters, noise and disruption to what has been up to now a peaceful place.
The meeting heard how plans to site between 300 and 500 giant wind turbines (some up to three times the height of Skerryvore) between the land and the lighthouse would require major structural alterations to the Island including a building the size of a football pitch to house the equipment to convert the electricity when it comes ashore and up to 4,000 square meters of office buildings. In answer to a question from a resident, Ralph Thornton admitted that there was no way the islanders could stop the wind farm from going ahead if consent is given by the Scottish Energy Minister.
Opinions of locals is divided, some feel that the development will bring only good to the island – upgrading to health, housing, education and policing and the potential creation of jobs and leisure amenities along with a possible community financial bonus being amongst the improvements on offer. Others feel that the necessary changes to the Island “will destroy our whole way of life, this will be the end of Tiree as we know it” and that “our gaelic culture will suffer and we will lose our peaceful existence. No doubt this scheme will be railroaded through in the guise of national necessity, no doubt some people will get very rich out of this construction at the expense of others”.
Andrew Montgomery, factor to the Duke of Argyll, told the meeting;
“ No one could, in their wildest dreams imagine the impact this development will make on Tiree. Argyll Estates has a duty of care for the people of Tiree and the island and having attended this meeting we now have serious concerns about the plans which will affect the way of life here”
One resident pointed out that “whether we want it or not if the wind farm goes ahead we must get a decent rate of return on our investment. Our whole way of life will change, and it must not be allowed to change for the worse .”
It was also revealed that two other off shore energy installations are being proposed for the seas around Tiree – one a wave power installation, the other a further wind turbine site. This could mean the contract workers and maintenance crews for all three sites could be based here, turning Tiree into a huge terminal for renewable energy possibly changing the very essence of Tiree beyond all recognition and repair.
The meeting finished with a renewed mandate being given to the Trust to continue working on behalf of the community to ensure we do not suffer unduly from this development, should it go ahead.
Background documents and links to relevant sites can be found on the Trusts website; www.tireetrust.org.uk
I am at the moment sat in an Oil field in a village called Zillah in the Libyan Sahara
During May I wandered around Ceann a’ Mhara enjoying the view and exploring the cliffs for possible rock climbing routes. I sat for quite a while and pondered over the view out towards Skerryvore. At the back of my mind was a niggling doubt that it would not always look as beautiful, I went as far as to try and visualise in my mind’s eye the aesthetic change to the horizon caused by a windfarm, all this as the Fulmars and Kittiwakes darted by…
Mr. Montgomery so rightly notes; “No one could, in their wildest dreams imagine the impact this development will make on Tiree.”
If the wind farm gets the thumbs up from the ‘bean counters’ make no mistake it will be the end of Tiree as we know it, there is no doubt about this point. There will be the transient workforce through the initial development stage, the maintenance and auxiliary staff throughout its entire life span, today’s people of Tiree may no longer be the majority of the populace. I see the situation globally with my work as an oil explorations HSE consultant; I see the empty wildernesses fill with tyre tracks, then I watch the drilling stage, the damage caused by oil field development, the production stages…
I see how in most ‘developing nations’ the local economy changes
little after the fields start to produce and the initial jobs dry up, I see the empty hulks and ground disturbance, the empty buildings as the oil men move out (much as the RAF did) and the pumps start to pump.
Socio-economically the developments do not enhance the lives of the local people, in these ‘developing nations’. The local inhabitants rarely have the voice or the support to argue with the dollar sign for structured sustainability; rogue, junta, pseudo democratic, business run countries do not in general give a toss when the hard currency comes rolling in…They steamroller through the culture and leave nothing but sadness in their wake.
We however do have the luxury of choice, and only one choice if the plans go ahead; we have the choice of being a part of the development, embracing the change, and ensuring that the planners think ahead and offer a sustainable future for our community and protect the link with at least the way Tiree is now…
The idea of it all saddens me greatly, and I know it is the older members of the community that will be most affected by the rapid change. It does sadden me greatly that people will move here not by choice, but by way of seeking work and job placement…that is an opening for Tiree to become a more worldly effected, by way of noise, crowds,light polution and crime…
My greatest fear of all is that we stand by ‘like so many rabbits caught in the headlights of change’ and let this all happen without making the project as beneficial as it can possibly be for Tiree, if it is not managed correctly on ‘our’ behalf this will be a very bad thing for us all.
The impacts of this development will be to Tiree what Sullom Voe was to the people of the Shetlands, I think it is high time that we made contact with the people of Shetland(Shetland Islands Council?), and take onboard the hard lessons that they had to learn, warranted they also had the possibility of major oil pollution to contend with, but pollution especially social pollution comes in many forms.
Our current needs are adequately and well catered for by our Tiree Community Development Trust, but to protect our interest and squeeze every last drop of benefit out of this project for the people of Tiree, we needs something more than our current Trust or we will be left high and dry by the bow wave of change.
We don’t need simple appeasing handouts, we don’t need to be told what we are going to get, we need to tell the power brokers what we want & what the children, families and people of Tiree deserve, long term sustainability and as low as is reasonably possible environmental impact.
Karl Hughes
Bothan na Fear (formerly Osborne House) The Pier, Scarinish.
Maybe you have already seen this:
http://islayenergytrust.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/arc-sia-scoping-study-final-exec-foreword-contents.pdf
Regards
Karl
this is not island life, it will be the end of the magic of the island under the waves. life here is not meant to be like that…….
We can not protest against windpower. But we should protest gainst the absolute devastation of Tiree- benefits or no benefits.
I am tiree resident also oil industry and have been to many noisy heliports and been involved in big construction projects.
The only way forward to preserve Tiree as a lived in wilderness area is.
1. Build the transformer / converter station offshore plus control system ofshore- run it like an offshore oil platform
2. Helicopters from oban
Wake up Tiree , forget the “extra places in the school bribes and jobs being nightwatchman or painting fences – that is what is on offer
Otherwise no matter what “promises” are made that is the end of Tiree as a special place.
We will just change into a giant offshore trerminal for ALL the 3 potential developments- argyll array plus T2 T3 areas for tidal and wind power proposed for beyond 2020
Concrete , Steel Machinery- Noise lights people pollution – the end of the world as we know it
Tiree does not need to be destroyed in order to buld wind power and increase profit for scottish renewable electric company
I suggest write to all environmental aware celebrities eg David Attenborough even Prince Charlse even Alistair Campbell ex Blair PR as he has Tiree family links.
Hello people of Tiree.
I’m writing from Wellington, New Zealand, but I trained in medicine in Glasgow, have cruised around the islands, and my name is Scottish. I love the islands and I am proud of my ancestry.
What is proposed is bound to change Tiree for as long as wind-power is a significant supplier of electricity. My main concern would not only be that there is a visual pollution, which of course is unavoidable and will be really severe, but that this facility, being so close to Tiree (about 5 kms, which is not far at all) , will in fact be worryingly noisy 24/7/52, which would be much worse to endure. I think you should insist before it goes ahead that this aspect is thoroughly researched and meaningful guarantees are in place, with sufficiently severe and unavoidable penalties imposed as recompense to the islanders if they are not met. The location of this wind farm within such a short distance from the shore-line makes this proposal rather more serious for the residents of Tiree, than say the one proposed for Islay.
Secondly, the value of electricity coming from this facility will approximately be 400 million pounds/annum, by my back of the envelope calculations . A 0.25% “toll” for the islanders in perpetuity, would provide one million pounds per annum. I would suggest that with such a toll the cost to the enterprise, the owners and the other users of electricity would be therefore minuscule. Such a “toll” would provide for free electricity in perpetuity for all 770 residents of the island and sufficient finances left over to subsidise say, a community facility with large, heated indoor swimming pool (heated by the renewable energy) and community centre, leisure and sports centre, theatre, , medical facilities, insulation of homes, etc, as the people of Tiree wish.
The problem for the residents in Tiree is that these massively culturally changing decisions are being made elsewhere, in Spain (I understand that Scottish Renewables is only a 20% minor partner in this facility, that 80% of this investment comes from Iberdrola Renewables, a Spanish billion dollar earning corporation; so this isn’t even truly a “Scottish” investment) , London, Edinburgh, with no real reference to the affected citizens. In this you share the same fate as most other residents of Anglo-Saxon nations, where corporatist generation interests regularly ride roughshod over those of local communities with the approval of your elected politicians.
In Denmark, Germany, Holland, Sweden etc. local communities become part-owners of the nearby windpower facilities, they have the pain but at least a share of the gain. In Anglo-Saxon nations, you have the pain, but no gain. I can tell you now that any move by you to ensure some real continuing financial gain from this enterprise will be absolutely and stubbornly resisted by the developers, and by your politicians, who supposedly represent you, but will be anxious instead, as they have over many years, to cravenly kowtow to commecial interests, just as in New Zealand. The greed of big corporations knows no bounds, and the yells of disbelief that ordinary people might get some sort of “privelege” from “their” investment will be deafening. Yet the figures I have provided show just how a trivial amount of these massive earnings, diverted to local communities, could have a profoundly beneficial effect for them, that might to some extent mitigate and compensate for all the major negative effects. . You should insist on nothing less, just as other communities affected by similar projects should also do so, you need to be trailblazers here. The promise of jobs in construction etc, is entirely peripheral, and should be treated as such, these are often low-paid and temporary and are never adequate recompense.
Good luck to all of you. These proposals have already changed your lives. Be consistent, firm and united. Use all the publicity you can, using all those in positions of authority and renown, who love the Scottish islands for what they are, to help you meet your reasonable requests and to make these corporations look mean and despicable if they won’t accede to them.
Regards and very best wishes from the other end of the Earth.
[...] main topic of conversation which divided opinion on and off the island, is the proposed off-shore wind farm, now known as Tiree Array, which caused heated debates and which I am sure will continue through [...]
For all of you out there who believe in windpower.
http://forargyll.com/2011/01/the-times-highlights-tiree-campaigners-against-the-argyll-array-offshore-windfarm/comment-page-4/#comment-260889
Regards