Wind Energy – Download the planning documents

This page is now ancient history as the planning application for three wind turbines at Ascog Farm was submitted in October 2012, validated by Argyll & Bute Council on 29.10.2012 before being dismissed at planning on 22.03.2013 and, finally, killed off at appeal on 04.12.2013.

The whole, rather sad, story highlights the difficulty of getting onshore wind energy generating capacity built in Scotland (and many other parts of the UK) and remains online as an important archive which, we hope, may help guide more enlightened planning policies and dispel many of the myths surrounding renewable wind energy generation…

Nearly ten years on, we all know what wind turbines look like, most people accept them in the landscape and, in 2019, low-carbon energy generated the majority of the UK’s electricity for the first time.

To anyone newly embarking on this process, or to policy makers researching just how difficult planning for onshore wind can be in the face of concerted and often misguided opposition, please read the News Archive, which will last for posterity!

Here’s how things were back then…

Some two years of study went into the production of the planning documents in support of our 2012 application to build and operate 3 wind turbines and ancillary equipment at Ascog Farm, Isle of Bute as a community/renewable energy project.

Ascog Farm has good potential for renewable wind energy generation, sadly dismissed by the Scottish planning system purely on the basis of views.

The original planning documents can still be accessed from this page. Please download and read the documents below:

By default the documents will open in a new Tab (or Window) in your browser OR they may be downloaded and opened in your PDF viewer.

You will need the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) Reader (free download) or some similar PDF Viewer to open the documents.

If you would like to download all of the documents in a ZIP archive please use the link below:

  • Ascog_WEP.zip
    49,296,218 bytes
    MD5SUM 81c53a4b3ecf5aa27566046c12240882

NOTE: You may also Right-Click (Windows) or Control-Click (Mac) and hit ‘Save target as…’/’Download linked file…’ (respectively) to save the documents to a location you specify on your computer.

Please be aware that the files are quite large (e.g. near enough 50MB for the complete ZIP archive) so depending upon your connection speed downloads may take a while.

Alternatively, bound documents are available for inspection at the offices of Argyll & Bute Council, Kilmory, Lochgilphead, Argyll, PA31 8RT. The documents are also available on the Argyll & Bute Council web site. Click ‘Documents’ and ‘View associated documents’ once the page has loaded.

Electronic content may also be requested from SAC Environment and Design, Pentland Building, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Midlothian, EH26 0PH. SAC charge £10 for electronic copies on CD although the Non Technical Summary may be requested free of charge.

Supplementary noise and visual documents

On 11 December 2012 Argyll & Bute planning officers wrote requesting additional information concerning noise and visual impact.

Please download and read the documents below:

Recommendation

If you’ve got this far we would recommend downloading and reading the documents above, especially the Non Technical Summary, Environmental Statement and Planning Statement.

Once you have done so we would be most grateful if you would show your support for the scheme.