Huge Wind Power Station Proposed for Gienmoriston INSIDE
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Winter Edition 2003 Number 68 Huge Wind Power Station proposed for Gienmoriston INSIDE. Windfarm developers RDC along with sister BLETHER company West Coast Energyare proposing to build a Editor’s Words 3 huge windfarm consisting of at least 21 turbines on the hill between Gienmoriston and Fort Augustus. NEW LOCH NESS The land on which the turbines are to be built is the Monsters.............4 property of Achlain Estate and Aberchalder Estate. The turbines will be owned and operated by Falck NEWSROUND Renewables, a subsidary of an Italian multinational Local Services 6 registered in Milan. According to West Coast Energy ’ s project manager GOLDRUSH Peter Barker, the turbines will be 115 metres tall (380 Wind Bonanza 8 feet). This is 60ft taller than Big Ben with each blade VILLAGE HALL the size of Nelson’s Column. The wind turbines will be clearly seen from Fort Augustus, Gienmoriston, Happenings 19 Cluanie, Glengarry and the south side of Loch Ness. COUNCILLOR’S Local residents are expressing concerns that not only Column.............. 24 could the wind power station mair the landscape of the Loch Ness area - a worldwide destination for GARDENING 29 tourists - but damage local tourism, businesses and property prices for no real gain. This is one of five CROSSWORD..30 windfarm proposals for the Loch Ness area alone. And Much More... www.moriston.com Gienmoriston & Invermoriston by Loch Ness Magazine Christmas U\dem from Ist of ‘December to 23rd of December 03 In ike 2 ‘AA ‘ded Rosette Dated ‘Moris ton Res to ur ant be tiomi 7 &Spm Glass of stubbed Wine on Arrival Chef's tHomemade Soup o f the Day with bread from our In-House ‘Bakery. homemade Chicken Liver Date ruith ‘HighlandOatcakes Brawn Cocktail “Traditional Roast Crown o f‘Turkey with all of the Christmas Ray re Trimmings Roast Silverside of Reef with Homemade Yorkshire Budding in a ricfigravy Stuffed Roast Loin o f Borfp raith Sip ri co t & Thyme Stuffing with all of the Christmas fayre Trimmings Vegetarian Hut Roast ruith a Red ‘.Pepper Coulis on a Bed of Hoodies Traditional Christmas Budding ruith a Brandy Sauce Chocolate Truffle Torte served with Homemade ice Cream Homemade Cheese Cake With ‘fresh Berries Coffee & Homemade Mince Bies : 01320-351206, fa%.;01320-351308 or‘Email:[email protected] reservations. Brice per (Person fo r 4 Courses only £ 1 5 3 5 Moriston Matters - Winter 2003 I BLETHER I Following several requests and the momentous EDITOR windfarm proposal, we have decided to issue Ann B erry another edition of the Moriston Matters DESIGN & PRINT community magazine. The last edition was in Ray B erry Autumn 1999. Just after that we bought the Redburn Cafe PUBLISHER and we have, apart from two short breaks for a Imprint Publishing holiday, been working seven days a week. This is ADDRESS in addition to running our original Web Design Sylvan House business. R edburn Gienmoriston As you can imagine, this made it impossible to Inverness IV63 7YJ continue to publish Moriston Matters and United Kingdom. although we tried hard to find someone else to take it on, no-one was forthcoming. Recently, TELEPHONE Elaine fromDundreggan has offered her valuable 01320 340210 help and it has m ade this edition possible. W e are WEB SITES still seeking an editor, but we feel very strongly www.ipw.com indeed that anyone taking on the magazine should wwwf, moriston.com www.Iochnessguide.com be completely independent from other organisations and committees in the glen. So if EMAIL ADDRESS you fancy the job, please contact us. The details [email protected] are in the right hand column of this page. SUBSCRIPTIONS The magazine has existed intermittently since UK £2.50 per annum the 1970s and in spite of the gaps in publication, EUROPE £3,50 per annum there is always the website at www.moriston.com WORLD £6.00 per annum where articles and information will continue to Mastercard/Visa accepted be published. © Imprint Publishing 2003 Having spoken to many people in the glen regarding the proposed windfarm, the overall No part of this publication is to be copied or otherwise reprinted impression that I have been given is that more without permission of the information is needed. Although the development publisher, company RDC has conducted a roadshow and Moriston Matters is a local sent leaflets to everybody, it is very much in their magazine serving the residents : interests that the windfarm goes ahead so their and the visitors of Glenmonston.. information is hardly independent. Therefore I Invemiortston by Loch Ness and . will devote a large part of this edition of Moriston district. Matters to trying to bridge that gap as well as It is published on a not-for-profit putting the other points of view. basis and its puqro'se is to provide This windfarm is biggest thing to happen to a means of communication and interchange of news and ideas this glen and Fort Augustus for many years. We within our community. must have our say - it is our community after all Moriston Matters - Winter 2003 3 The New Loch Ness Monsters Today is a beautiful day. The on the banks of Loch Ness and runs deep blue sky glows above the gold parallel to the Great Glen, Loch of the autumn birches. Silence, Ness and the Caledonian Canal for except for the rustle of a gentle breeze the first nine miles or so before it in the aspen trees. You can see for peels off westward towards the Five miles, and as you wander closer to Sisters of Kintail - some of the most the river Moriston, the occasional popular of the Munroes - and on to splash of a leaping trout, or was it a the mystical Eil an Donan Castle and salm on? the road to Skye. Gienmoriston, the road to the isles The 400 metres high hill between just by Loch Ness is considered by Gienmoriston and Loch Ness is a many the most beautiful of the treat to climb. It isn’t difficult as the Scottish glens. Tourists from all over ancient drover’s road crosses it here, the world return here because of the but from the top you can see across glen N unique aura of peace, i know Loch Ness, Fort Augustus and because I speak to them frequently. Gienmoriston. The rush of energy, Gienmoriston is a special place of spirit that you feel at the splendour in the hearts' of all who have of that view, perhaps the best in the experienced it. From America to highlands of Scotland, sustains and Australia, from the Netherlands to renews you. We are of the earth and Namibia this place, Gienmoriston, the earth has little to show more they tell me, holds the spirit of incredible than this. S cotland. For thousands of years the wild In the early 1930's, the traveller birds, the eagles who hover here H. V. Morton wrote: “Fifteen miles have been a part of this landscape. A of beauty lie between hills. They are landscape that people cross the world called Gienmoriston. There is dark to see and feel for themselves. Loch Cluanie, there are scraggy deer But that is today. And that was so forests, then the glen seem s suddenly for the millions of yesterdays that to peal with laughter as the road created this beauty. Tomorrow it dives into thick birch woods alive will be gone. It is proposed that this with rabbits what a perfect glen very place be industrialised with this is." more than twenty 380 foot high, 115 Finally over spectacular metre structures made of concrete waterfalls the river Moriston tumbles and steel. Roads will be torn through into Loch Ness. Gienmoriston starts the heather and the bedrock broken 4 Moriston Matters - Winter 2003 and filled with concrete as huge explanation left is vandalism, and vehicles bring these, the new Loch surely our politicians are not Ness monsters to destroy this vandals.... landscape perhaps for ever. Windpower has developed from If the local or national an idea to an obsession. Scotland is government of the area received already more than self sufficient in planning requests to build twenty or energy without any huge windfarms. more buildings bigger than the In fact it exports power to England. L ondon P ark Lane H ilton here, they So why is it that there are applications would have laughed. Structures that for m ore than three hundred o f these dwarf Big Ben and Nelson’s Column monster windfarms across Scotland, - it must be a joke. five of them around Loch Ness? But no, it is no joke. It is real and Loch Ness has very little industry has just been submitted for planning and is sustained largely by tourism. permission. These monsters are wind Loch Ness is probably the most turbines. Thus in their blind famous lake in the world and more dogmatic scramble for the profits of than four million people visit the renewable energy the people behind area every year. It isn’t to find the this wanton destruction of one of Loch Ness monster, although Britain’s, even Europes’ finest everyone casts an eye over the sullen landscapes can think only of the beauty o f the loch from tim e to tim e. profits involved. No, it is to gasp at the extraordinary It m ust be the profits. A fter all, it scenery and participate in the can’t be the electricity. These wind breathtaking landscape. To walk, to turbines are notorious for being climb or just to wander through a intermittent and produce energy only place that nature has built out of approximately a third of the time.