Gone with the wind farms?
With two wind farms proposed for Speyside, Charles Maclean asks: how will they affect this unspoiled area?
Speyside has a unique magic, as many readers of this magazine know. Thatâs why itâs one of Scotlandâs leading visitor attractions; each year over a million people come to ski in the Cairngorms, watch the ospreys at Boat of Garten and capercailzies in Glenmore Forest Park, walk the Speyside Way, fish the River Spey, play golf â and, of course, to visit the distilleries. Around half of Scotlandâs malt whisky distilleries are located in this beautiful, romantic and unspoiled paradise.
This may soon change. Not the location of the distilleries, but the âunspoiled paradiseâ, if a proposed plan to build two gigantic wind farms in the area are approved by the Scottish Executive.
The farms themselves are to be the largest ever built in the UK, with turbines standing 324 feet high â exactly twice the height of Nelsonâs Column! There will be 27 turbines on one site, 28 on the other. Visible within an area of 1,000 square miles, and plain to see from 20 miles away.
One of the proposed sites, in the hills directly opposite Cardhu Distillery, will be oppressively visible from almost the entire length of the road between Aberlour and Grantown-on-Spey â an uncomfortable and constant reminder that industry and the hand of man is everywhere. The other will intrude upon the distillery road between Rothes and Elgin.
Farewell the lonely glens! Where once they echoed only to the autumnal roar of stags, now, day and night, year in year out, they will hum with the spooky s.....
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By Charles MacLean
Section : Whisky landscapes
Page number : 44
