Renewable Energy Awards

The Renewable Energy Awards were presented on 6th December 2007 and Scottish Energy Minister Jim Mather took the opportunity to reaffirm his Governments commitment to renewable energy and sustainable economic growth. He went on to say:

The message is we need more renewables but not at any price - the best applications are those that take care to resolve environmental and planning concerns in advance

The Wilderness Foundation UK is heartened to learn that the Scottish Government continues to look for improvements in their consents procedure, however the imposition of a nine month target to complete the turnaround on applications in place of the current almost two years it takes to achieve a decision, does restrict the opportunities that environmental groups will have to prepare a response to proposals where their is a clear and distinct threat to the environment, landscape and wildlife habitats. However, it would appear that future applicants will be required to tackle many of these issues before applications are submitted for consideration, so we are hopefully that great opportunities for consultation will occur prior to submission in future.

Further reading on this matter can be found at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News