Stornoway Trust: Selling out the community 27/7/10
Sirs,
Mr Frater’s letter last week on behalf of the Stornoway Trust made a number of serious errors which I am writing to correct.
First, Mr Frater suggests that the Stornoway Trust had to negotiate with Amec before they could agree a lease with Point and Sandwick Power for our wind farm at Beinn Ghrideag.
In fact, we secured the consent of John Price of Amec to the use of our site in 2005, before we submitted a planning application.
We met again with Simon Baker of Amec and Alasdair Rennie of British Energy on 29
August 2009 and they re-
We first requested a lease and a rental agreement from the Trust in 2008. Having made no progress in our informal discussions, we applied again formally on 16 April 2009. The Trust responded by saying they needed to meet with us to discuss the terms but provided no date.
On 20 May 2010, in an effort to end the delay, we wrote to the Trust again, offering to meet on any day in June except the 3rd. As of today, we have had no reply, no meeting and, two years on, no lease or even a draft of a lease.
We are not the only community-
Melbost and Branahuie wrote to the Trust requesting the release of their apportionment and on 24 March they offered a number of dates in April for a meeting. They have yet to receive a reply to that proposal.
Ironically, at the same time as he was ignoring these requests from community-
This request was approved without the Trust taking any independent external legal,
financial or technical advice as to its terms. The contrast in the treatment of
community-
If it was the case that the local economy stood to gain much greater economic benefit
from the new Amec lease than from supporting community-
Amec have announced that their contribution to the local economy will come in two forms: an annual rent payable to the Trust (half of which goes to the crofting interest in the land) and a community benefit fund of £4,000 per MW per annum.
For the purposes of comparison, we can set aside the rental as all developers on
the Stornoway Trust land will pay the same amount whether they are Amec or community-
Turning to the community benefit fund, the average return on community-
This huge gap in benefit is the motive behind all the community projects approved in the Western Isles as well as community schemes elsewhere, such as Gigha.
It is a figure well known in the wind energy industry in Scotland but not, it appears,
to the chairman of the Renewables Sub-
To put it another way, more money will come into the local economy from five community-
If the new 90 MW scheme proposed by Amec was being developed instead by community-
It is impossible to reconcile these figures with Mr Frater’s assertion that in signing the new lease the Trust has gained “the widest possible benefits on the best possible terms.”
Can we therefore ask the Renewables Sub-
And why has the Stornoway Trust refused to follow the example of other community landlords, such as Galson, South Uist Estate, West Harris and Gigha, and developed its own renewables schemes to maximise the income to the islands?
Contrary to Mr Frater’s insinuations, the Point and Sandwick Board have been regularly updated on the efforts of Calum MacDonald and An Teallach Energy to persuade the Stornoway Trust to develop their own wind farm. We are sorry these efforts failed.
What the Stornoway Trust must explain is why they are alone among community-
Donald John MacSween,
Chair,
Point and Sandwick Power
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