Spittal Hill Wind Farm - an opportunity to make your views known

WHY WE ARE INTERESTED IN YOUR VIEWS
AND HOW TO GET INVOLVED

Why are your views important?
How do you get involved in the Proposed Wind Farm at Spittal Hill?
What happens next?

Why are your views important?
Organisations, both from the public and private sectors, are increasingly – and wisely – seeking the views of local communities in order to inform and influence their planning proposals. Their intention is to gain a deeper insight into people's views and opinions about their plans, which will help them to build more sustainable developments that address local issues and incorporate local knowledge.

Wind farm developments in particular offer many excellent examples of how developers and local authorities have worked together to the benefit of the local community. In many cases they have done so to successfully structure a proposed development to meet a wide variety of needs such as: school facilities; transport infrastructure; community funds and so on. Indeed, the benefits of meaningful community involvement are such that it will soon be a statutory requirement under the planning legislation in Scotland.

How do you get involved in the Proposed Wind Farm at Spittal Hill?
As a first step, Holyrood Consultations, an independent company working on behalf of Spittal Hill Windfarm Ltd, produced a newsletter which has been circulated to all households within a 10 KM radius of the proposed wind farm. The newsletter, which you can download as a pdf by clicking here, provided information about the proposal and wind energy more generally. It also details how you can be involved in the development and comment on the proposals in the future.

The first opportunity to comment was provided by a questionnaire that was included with the aforementioned newsletter. If you would like to see the questionnaire, click here to download the pdf version.

Secondly, Holyrood Consultations and Spittal Hill Windfarm Ltd held a public -open- exhibition on 28th June at Watten Hall. This will help to ensure that all local residents have the opportunity to find out more and are able to comment on the proposal.

Moreover because we want to actively encourage local people from across the community to get involved and have their say we completed an evening workshop called a public dialogue event. This workshop was designed to include a broadly representative selection of local people and was structured to ensure that an in-depth and informed discussion could take place about the development. The groups were recruited in such a way, using face-to-face recruiters, to ensure that they include a broadly representative group of local people. The event was run by Holyrood Consultations.

Discussions have taken place with various local people and Community Council representatives. Spittal Hill Windfarm Ltd will also be discussing the development, on an on-going basis, with the local council, local businesses, local people and community representatives. They want to include all those groups and individuals who should be involved in order to ensure that their views are considered.

What happens next?
Your comments are important to us and your views will be used to inform the proposed wind farm development. Findings from the community consultation will be included in our planning application and fed back to local residents.

As part of the proposal Spittal Hill Windfarm Ltd are keen to ensure that local people are able to benefit from a fund which will be provided from revenue generated from the wind farm. They are particularly interested in your views on a community trust, as outlined in the newsletter and in this website, and how community involvement should be structured and managed.

Depending on how the planning application progresses, future editions of the newsletter and this website will keep you informed. These will also provide opportunities for further discussion.

Please do take the time to have your say and find out more about wind farms. In the meantime if you have any questions or would like further information please contact us.

In order to register your interest in being involved in the project please click here