Resolution in sight for blocked community windfarm 28/5/12
There are hopes that a community windfarm will obtain a vital lease shortly which would remove the last major obstacle to the local project.
Point and Sandwick Trust is to build three large turbines on communal crofters' grazings on the Stornoway Trust estate by Marybank, outside Stornoway.
It means the crofters’ first electricity should be generated onto the national grid later next year. It would supply 6,000 households and save 13,600 tonnes of CO2 each year.
Some £40 million of profits over the next 25 years will be ploughed back into vital social projects on the island like job creation, rural regeneration and improving local amenities.
One body to benefit will be the Bethesda Cancer Hospice in Stornoway which has been promised an annual donation of £20,000 after it starts operating.
However, public consultation meetings held in the district covered by the windfarm trust heard that the project is in stalemate as Lewis Windpower, which intends to build a neighbouring giant windfarm, has the power of veto over the tiny local project.
Lewis Windpower obtained legal rights over the crofters’ land from the Stornoway
Trust many years ago. It has yet to approve a lease to permit the Point and Sandwick
Trust (PST) scheme to go-
PST chairman Donald John Macsween confirmed the lease issue was a stumbling block and needed to be resolved urgently.
He highlighted he was “confident we may get the lease in our hands in a matter of days rather than weeks.”
Meanwhile, Point footballers will be running around the district collecting consultation sheets from residents this week.
Everyone on the electoral roll between Steinish and Tuimpan has received a letter seeking their views on how the windfarm profits should be invested in the community.
Members of Point FC will be going door-