I have just received this copy which I am told by George Lindsay was printed in the Scotsman. The implication is serious. It appears to mean that many wind farms in Scotland have been erected illegally showing a disregard by the Scottish government for the law. However, this is not the first time the government’s policy has been ruled to have broken the law. Just recently they were found to have broken the Aarhus ruling. This effectively made wind farms illegal because of lack of any meaningful consultation about the policy. When put together with the fact that MSPs were lied to regarding the key figure on cost benefit when the Climate Change act was debated, this shows an incompetent administration hell bent on this policy irrespective of the normal democratic processes & compliance with the law.
Shetland bombshell (3 October).
At a judicial review of the Shetland wind farm Lady Clark of Calton said the Shetland wind farm application was not competent because Viking Energy did not have a licence under the 1989 Electricity Act.
Looking at the list of licensees on the Ofgem website and the exempted persons on the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) website it is hard to see a name operating in Scotland.
How many wind farms have been erected or are going through planning without the developers having a licence? I suspect very many are illegal. This primary UK legislation has been overlooked.
There is now a legal argument as to whether the 1989 Electricity Act just applies to Section 36 and 37 wind farms which go straight to government or whether it applies to all wind farms over 10MW decided by local councils. The wording seems quite clear to me and I would not like to be the Scottish Government’s lawyer.
Presumably to avoid liabilities, companies often form a new company for each wind farm. There have also been a lot of people jumping on this lucrative, subsidy-ridden bandwagon.
In order to protect the public, I hope Ofgem and DECC will do a rigorous scrutiny of those who will no doubt be queuing up for licences. What of the wind farms built illegally?
Celia Hobbs
