Community Information Day

The Project Team will be holding a Community information Day in June to update Tiree on developments in the project. Members of the Project Team will be available during the day to answer any questions people may have and to hear their views.

An important feature of the day will be photomontages of the project. Photomontages are large computer generated pictures of the way the wind farm may look from viewing points on Tiree. We would hope to have 3 photomontages available. These will be left on public display on the island for those not able to attend the Information Day. Additional photomontages will produced at a later stage to form the formal landscape and visual assessment chapter of the planning application.

We will be consulting the public later this year about the viewing points for the formal planning photomontages. The main purpose of the June photomontages is to provide a starter point for consultation. Should similar viewing points be used for the planning application or should they be different? The date and venue of the Information Day are not yet finalized but will be fixed in the very near future.

Wave Buoy Planning Application

The public notice for this planning application was in last week’s Tirisdeach. The application itself is available for public inspection at the Area Office.

The application is for permission to site four wave rider buoys out at sea, at various points within the area of the proposed wind farm. The buoys would be fitted with GPS tracker or similar, to transmit their locations on a continuous basis and warn of displacement. Each buoy would probably be spherical, possibly elliptical with a maximum width of approximately 1.5m.

The buoys would be equipped with a high intensity navigation warning light and would be deployed for an initial period of 12 months. A 250 metre clearance distance for vessels and gear has been requested at each of the deployment sites to avoid the risk of fouling. The buoys would record the height and frequency of waves, atmospheric pressure and air temperature within the zone. This information could provide useful information for the environmental assessment (e.g. to assess impacts on wave regime) and logistic strategies (e.g. construction programmes). The application has been made to the planning authority for works at sea, which is Marine Scotland. Argyll and Bute Council do not issue consents for works at sea.

There will be more information in future updates on what Marine Scotland is and what it does.

Health Impact Assessment

SPR has commenced a Health Impact Assessment Scoping exercise. This work will investigate the merits of carrying out a Health Impact Assessment on the project and highlight topics which would be useful to cover in any Assessment.

It is hoped that this work can tie in with the work for which the Scottish Public Health Network has allocated monies to Tiree.

Contracts

SPR will shortly be placing a contract for Lead Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Consultancy. The Lead EIA Consultants will be responsible for undertaking the EIA on the project, including the Socio Economic Impact Assessment and visualisations.

SPR are also currently tendering for a number of other important contracts including preliminary grid route selection and navigation assessment consultants.

Monthly bird and marine mammal surveys continue on the site.

Future Updates

• Background to Marine Scotland
• Date and venue for Community Information Day in June
• Information on erection of a land met mast to measure wind
• Results of the Argyll Array Questionnaire conducted last year

Questions or comments

If anyone has any questions or comments on any of the above, or indeed any aspect of the project, please contact Donnie Campbell, Machair, Kilmoluaig in the first instance. donnie@argyllarray.com

Community Liaison Officer

The SPR Community Liaison Officer for Tiree has now been appointed.

We are delighted to announce that Donnie Campbell has accepted the post, and will be starting at the beginning of April. His email address at SPR is donnie{@}argyllarray.com . More information about the post will be available on the Argyll Array website shortly.