Save Cowal’s Hills (SCH) is an umbrella organisation which brings together local people who wish to protect our cherished natural landscape from inappropriate and damaging development. It was organized in 2014 in response to the proposal by PNE Wind for an enormous industrial scale wind farm (Bachan Burn) on the hill-tops above Dunoon. Proposals for smaller but similarly located wind farms (the Corlarach Hill and Black Craig schemes) had been rejected in 2009 by two separate Public Local Inquiries as being inappropriate for the location and damaging to visual amenity and the local economy. People were understandably distressed, and outraged, that the Bachan Burn proposal was being put forward only five years after smaller and less intrusive proposals had been officially rejected.
Save Cowal´s Hills is now concentrating on the newest and most serious threats thus far faced concerning the beauty of our landscapes, wildlife and more.
These threats now appearing in the menacing form of the Giant´s Burn Windfarm, and additionally an even larger proposal for the Inveroachlain Windfarm, both of which have the potential to completely devastate and destroy the unquestionable beauty of our region.
A Steering Group of 10-15 people undertakes to guide and facilitate the activities of SCH, and this group meets about once a month. But when important activities must be organized, a much bigger network of supporters can be called upon.
Important Notice –The Photographic Images contained and reproduced on this Website, have been carefully created and produced, following and applying professionally recognised industry standards, obtaining and faithfully reproducing the factual sizes and proportions involved, thus presenting and fully demonstrating realistic visualisations of how the landscapes and turbines will be seen, from various locations throughout our region, if in fact they should be installed as being proposed by Statkraft.
A full description of the Methodology employed can be verified in the “Contact” section of this Web Site.
Cowal’s Beautiful Hills Once Again Threatened by the Gigantic Wind Farm – Giant´s Burn!
It is being proposed to build a massive industrial-scale wind farm with 9 gigantic wind turbines, each towering 200m (650 ft) in height, on the hill-tops immediately above the heavily residential areas of Dunoon and Sandbank, with the latter being extremely close, situated less than 1 mile away from the proposed site, with Dunoon still also being very close at some 2.5 miles away from the proposed site.
These frankly enormous turbines would be built on a 525 Hectare site being named as being Giant´s Burn, (Locally known as the Bishop´s Seat). This site will impact heavily from many standpoints,visually and otherwise, on all villages and communities in our area.
The proposed wind farm would be visually overwhelming, and when installed on the proposed sight , some 400 metres high, will represent an impacting visual “visiting card” of that approaching half of the height of Scotland´s (and the UK´s) highest mountain, Ben Nevis, and will be prominently visible across vast areas of the Inner Clyde Estuary affecting not only the residents of Cowal and the Inverclyde Coast but also visitors to the area and those traveling by ferry, cruise ship, yacht, or road. Previous proposals, with much smaller turbines than these now currently being proposed for installation in Cowal , were subject to significant popular objection and rejection, from various communities given the visually intrusive, adverse and destructive results these would impose, unacceptably and irreversibly destroying the renowned visual beauty of the region.
This ‘Giant´s Burn Wind Farm’ proposal is very significantly larger than any previously presented, and that have likewise seriously threatened Cowal’s Hills, with this latest being proposed by Statkraft, a Norwegian Government owned enterprise.
Save Cowal’s Hills is an umbrella group of concerned residents who initially came together in 2014 in opposition to the original Bachan Burn wind farm proposal, and who remain fully committed to ensuring that Cowal’s special landscapes and scenic beauty are protected from intrusive, inappropriate, or damaging development. We have no objection to sensibly scaled and sited renewable energy projects, but are firmly convinced that the Giant´s Burn wind farm is (in the words of former local MSP – Mike Russell, concerning a previous, and significantly smaller wind farm proposal for Bachan Burn) is most certainly – “the wrong renewable in the wrong location”.