25 Feb 2026
As Chair of Leitholm, Eccles and Birgham Community Council, Bob Hope attended this week’s round table event at the Scottish Parliament organised by Highland Community Councils to discuss the expansion of onshore windfarms across rural Scotland with the Scottish Government. He wasn’t impressed with the Cabinet Secretary Gillian Martin’s response.
Approximately 100 attendees, mainly Community Councillors, made their own way, at their own expense and in their own time from all corners of Scotland to share their concerns, on behalf of their communities, about the impact of renewable energy infrastructure on their lives and rural environment.
They represented people from Shetland, the Scottish Borders, Highland, Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Northeast Scotland, East Lothian, South Lanarkshire and Perth & Kinross. Even Iona sent a delegate.
Gillian Martin MSP, Cabinet Minister for Climate Action and the Environment, having previously dismissed the event as being right wing, attended for 30 minutes of the two-hour session. Her disdain for the elected community councillors was clear throughout.
It is her belief that we need to work with her to find a better consultation process between developers and communities to allow developments to proceed. At one point she alluded to the fact that rural communities are just not used to industrial development. She is also of the belief that increasing community benefit bribes will make the havoc being wreaked on our countryside acceptable.
Rather than taking this unique opportunity to engage with rural communities, the Minister left at the end of 30 minutes having heard little or nothing of our concerns.
Had she stayed she would have heard from the John Muir Trust, that Munro baggers can now see wind turbines from 280 of our 282 Munros. She would have heard that wind-generated electricity is unreliable for long periods due to lack of wind and that it is totally unpractical to develop enough battery storage to bridge the gap.
She would have heard about the real impact of ultra-low level noise from turbines on human health. Many more well-researched points were made by ordinary people representing their communities that the Minister will never hear.
One thing that she did hear was that we are now acting as one under the banner of the Unified Statement and we are not going away.
The Corries wrote:
O Flower of Scotland, when will we see your likes again? Who fought and died for our wee bit hill and glen........
It’s ironic that it is our own Scottish government who have vandalised that wee bit hill and glen, our rural heritage of which we have always been so proud. Gillian Martin should think again.