Borders councillors reject wind farm application

Councillors on the Scottish Borders Council Planning Committee voted against their officials’ recommendation to approve the application for Wull Muir Wind Farm by six votes to three.

Councillors had previously rejected the eight-turbine scheme, developed by EnergieKontor, and it was also dismissed on appeal. The re-designed scheme had repositioned the turbines back from the Lammermuirs/Moorfoot escarpment, but with an increase of turbine height to 149 metres.

It was rejected on the grounds that there would still be significant landscape and visual impacts from the development which had not been mitigated by the redesign.

The councillors concluded the proposed development was contrary to policy 11 of National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) and policy ED9 of the Scottish Borders Local Development Plan 2016 in that the wind farm would have significant adverse landscape and visual impacts particularly on the north and south of the proposed site.

The plans had been met with widespread opposition locally, Heriot Community Council and even Scottish Borders Council’s own landscape architect.

In a presentation to the planning committee today, Heriot Community Council said they and the local Scottish Borders Council Landscape Architect made clear the re-design was unacceptable and the wind farm developer failed to address the Planning Reporter’s previous concerns.

The community council stated that NPF4 is a planning framework that underlines a requirement for the right development in the right place and Wull Muir is not a suitable site.