Trust campaigns to reform planning system

Trust policy team reponds to Scottish Government consultation on threshold for wind farm applications and calls for planning system reform to better protect the wild.

The Trust’s Policy Team recently submitted a response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on the threshold for onshore electricity generation, which would allow Local Authorities to have more decision making powers on onshore wind farms and other electricity generation projects.

We support this change, but only as a temporary measure towards reforming the current planning system, because we believe that the existing planning system is failing to effectively protect wild places (including Wild Land Areas and peatland).

Our goal is to establish a proactive planning system that provides clear guidelines outlining acceptable locations for onshore windfarms, as well as measures to prevent cumulative negative impacts from these developments.

Next steps: it will take 12 weeks for the Scottish Government to publish their analysis of their the responses (maybe a bit longer because of the upcoming election). We will continue to research this topic to develop a specific policy proposal, and we will continue to build on our Protect the Wild Campaign.

• Find out more about the Scottish Government's consultation on Electricity Act thresholds.
• Join our Protect the Wild Campaign.