The Herald reports that onshore wind projects in Scotland are facing significant delays because of the growing demand for movement of ‘abnormal loads’ (the turbine tower sections and blades), which need to be escorted by specialist road traffic police officers.

(Link to article transcript here)

Escorting these loads can take up to six hours to move on a single job, and is treated as secondary, overtime work for Police Scotland. It is usually carried out at weekends or in the evening when roads are quieter. It has also become commonplace for officers to work rest days to cover abnormal load escorts. With escorts booked well in advance, and liable to be cancelled at short notice if police need to respond to something more pressing, the delays are becoming a significant cost on projects that have often already taken years to get through planning. Firms are increasingly being quoted six to eight month waiting times for escorts.

Encouragingly for our campaign, this backlog is another negative factor for the energy giants Low Carbon and SSE promoting the massive wind farms at Glen Lednock and Glentarken. Both schemes have complex abnormal load routes, requiring the use of specialist ‘blade lifter’ vehicles to negotiate the narrow roads and bends.. This would limit the number of blades that could be transported in one convoy – and there are currently only two of these vehicles in the UK. This would mean yet more work for Police Scotland – and less time spent on keeping our roads safe.

What the Herald article fails to mention is the environmental destruction wrought to accommodate the abnormal loads on twisting, turning roads like the planned access route to the Glen Lednock construction site.

Up to 200 such loads would be routed through Crieff along a narrow lane (Highlandman Loan), past primary and secondary schools, and beside the beautifully-wooded MacRosty Park. These would include 57 movements of turbine blades up to 80m in length, necessitating brutal surgery of hundreds of mature trees – plus the severe traffic disruption caused by transporters crawling along at just 3mph.

The photos below show: (1) a blade-lifter in operation; (2) the beautiful Highlandman Loan crossroads, where mature trees would be decimated; and (3)the heavily-wooded MacRosty Park beside the A85, where there would be further massive destruction.