Trust chairman Calum Maclean’s letter to election candidates
Dear Candidate
I am writing to provide some background information about the Stornoway Wind Farm and the benefits that it will bring to people in the Stornoway Trust area. I hope that this will help ensure that you have the most up to date information available, but I would be delighted to meet with you to discuss any particular aspects you may wish to consider in greater depth.
Trust chairman Calum Maclean
The Stornoway Trust remains fully committed to working in partnership with Lewis Wind Power to deliver the 36 turbine (129.6MW) Stornoway Wind Farm, which we believe will bring significant benefits to the local community to help create a more sustainable local economy. Only through a large scale wind farm project, such as the Stornoway Wind Farm, will the interconnector to the mainland be delivered.
Delivering benefits to the local community
The Stornoway Wind Farm will deliver significant, long term benefits to the local community. The project has a substantial community element incorporated within it, which is equivalent to 26MW of generation. The Stornoway Trust is looking at the best mechanism for realising the potential of the 20% post energisation equity stake option secured under the lease agreement in the project. In addition, through the Scheme for Development, local people will receive significant payments to compensate for the use of land over the 25 year lease period.
Current activity
Significant progress has been made to date. The wind farm has already secured consent from the Scottish Government and much work has been done to ensure that all of the conditions attached to the consent (such as moving a Met Mast) are fulfilled. The developer has recently consulted on minor revisions to the scheme, including a new river crossing and an increase of 1.5m to the tip height of the turbines. The Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit will determine whether these minor alterations are acceptable.
Since February we have been consulting with crofters on the so-called Section 19A Scheme for Development, which sets out the proposed rental payments to individual crofters. To ensure that the crofters’ interests are properly dealt with, LWP have offered to fund independent legal/financial advice which townships are now seeking to take advantage of. The aim is to have this process concluded later this year with approval by the Scottish Land Court. We have been very pleased with the level of engagement and response to date on these consultations.
In Summary, we feel that this project and delivery of the Interconnector cable are of paramount importance to the long term economic development potential of Wind Energy on the Western Isles. We are currently in a position which indicates that failure to deliver the Interconnector cable ultimately means no more windfarms on Lewis and that would be a massive blow to the Islands community.
It is also very important to highlight the fact that the failure to deliver the Interconnector cable would also have a detrimental effect on any future growth for further community windfarm projects, since the current existing grid system is full to capacity. With the cost of the cable spiralling towards the 1 billion mark, it is important for major developers to be in place to bare the financial burden of the enormous guarantees that need to be put in place to cover the cable costs. Thankfully for us, AMEC and EDF are two companies that are in the fortunate position of having considerable financial strength behind them.
At this stage The Trust would therefore welcome confirmation of your support for the project and also ask for a written commitment from you, that in the event of you becoming the successful candidate in this forthcoming election campaign, that you will agree to meet with both the Stornoway Trust and Lewis Wind Power (LWP) at your earliest possible opportunity, to allow further discussions on this very important issue to take place.
I look forward to a prompt response.
Yours faithfully
Calum Maclean
Chairman
The Stornoway Trust
