Our Press Release - 26th June 2024

A delegation of representatives from communities from Caithness to Beauly threatened by and opposing  SSEN’s massive overhead pylons lines and substations, further onshore wind development and battery storage are meeting outside Highland Council Offices at 8.30am Thursday 27th June 2024 to remind Highland Councillors who they are supposed to represent as they arrive for the full council meeting.

Following the refusal to allow onto the agenda a debate giving a bigger voice, more information and a fairer planning system to distressed and affected communities because of deemed ‘incompetency’ it was discovered that the ‘Social Value Charter for Renewables Investment’ was going to be discussed. This new and alarming document encourages yet more industrialisation of the Highlands and has been cobbled together with the developer in mind and without any public consultation whatsoever. The draft charter was discussed and agreed by the Community Planning Partnership Board in apparent secret on 5th June.* Now it has been revealed by campaigners on social media it must not be rubber stamped at this meeting with no input from affected communities. We do not expect this kind of autocratic behaviour from our elected representatives in our local authorities.

Lyndsey Ward spokeswoman for CB4PC says: It really beggars belief that Councillor Crawford’s important motion was not aided by Highland Council officials to make it onto the agenda yet a document putting the world-renowned Highlands effectively up for sale to any developer prepared to throw a few more beads at the natives, without any proper public or independent scrutiny,  and is deemed competent enough to be debated is truly mind boggling.
We would urge all Highland Councillors to do what is right for the people who elected them into their position of trust and defer from voting on this charter until full and transparent public consultation has been completed.

* https://www.highland.gov.uk/meetings/meeting/4995/highland_community_planning_partnership_board/attachment/83418 Item 16

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