Promoted by
Pam Currie, National Secretary
on behalf of the Scottish Socialist Party, 70 Stanley Street, Glasgow, G41
1JB
Press release
Most recent, 26/04/2007
SSP will hold wind farm to account
At a public meeting in Lerwick last night SSP Lerwick North Candidate Kevin
Learmonth pledged, if elected, to hold the giant Shetland wind farm project
to account.
Far from being a get rich quick scheme, it could, he claimed, be “a
financial bottomless pit into which all our community funds disappear”.
The SSP candidate said “We are being asked to believe that for £25-30m
pounds of investment, private lenders will give us another £250 m.
Ten times as much as we are putting in. Much of this money will go into access
roads through the hills of Shetland, erection of turbines, transport and
services. The banks cannot take the roads back if the project fails, they
cannot re-sell the construction work, where is their security? Who would
end up paying the cost? “Us” he said.
Mr Learmonth explained that “the council has an unfortunate habit of
being stuck with huge bills after “sure-fire” investments fail. “Why
should this project be any different?” he demanded. He said that “lack
of scrutiny from councillors has enabled this project to get to this stage
without any proper discussion in the council chamber”.
The SSP candidate said “We have been seduced by slick marketing into
believing there is no down-side to the project, that nothing could possibly
go wrong. He reminded the meeting that the SIC had said similar things about
SSG Seafoods, Smyril Line and SOES, whose losses were peanuts compared to
the scale of the Viking Energy project”.
Mr Learmonth said that “community funds pay for recreation, social
care, and cultural activities, many of the things which make life good in
this community. All that would end if this project fails”.
If elected Mr Learmonth said he would fight to ensure the project made “financial
sense”, and “did not sacrifice our environment for the sake of
a quick buck”.
Mr Learmonth said that whilst half the scheme was under the control of Scottish
and Southern Energy, they had said little so far, and conducted no consultation.
Viking Energy appeared, he said, to “make claims on behalf of the whole
project”.
He said that “visual impact is one thing, half of the central Shetland
mainland would appear to be covered in turbines”, but of more concern
was what he described as “the permanent impact on the ecosystem.“ Thousands
of acres of Shetland would be “changed for ever”. He claimed
that “more peat will be dug up during construction than all the peat
dug in Shetland in the last 1000 years." Changing the ecosystem, damaging
the carbon store which is peat, none of that can ever be put right again.”
Mr Learmonth concluded by saying that if elected, himself and fellow SSP
candidate, Robbie Leith, who is standing for the Lerwick South ward, would
tackle the wind farm project “head on” to make sure it was a “good
deal for Shetland and the Shetland environment”.
Lerwick South SSP Candidate, Robbie Leith, told the meeting “global
warning is a reality, it is a very real threat, especially to island communities,
and the council has done little to tackle local greenhouse gas emissions.
It treats this project as a get rich quick scheme. We need to be serious
about our environment, but at the moment, this wind farm looks all about
cash at the expense of the environment”.
[ ends]