News

There’s always something going on at the farm!

Please find our latest news below:

• 08.07.2020 – Ascog to Ascog Farm to Loch Ascog to Rothesay Video
  We have just come across a nice video on YouTube by Michael Murray recording his walk from the Ascog shore, up and over the farm to Rothesay.
• 30.03.2020 – Cream Blanket discount!
  We will donate £20 to NHS Highland for every cream blanket sold during the COVID-19 outbreak.
• 29.03.2020 – Ascog Wool pleased to support isle20
  We’re delighted to support isle20, helping Scottish island businesses during the COVID-19 outbreak.
• 15.07.2017 – Upcoming exhibition at the Wool Fair
  We will again be exhibiting at the 2017 Wool Fair and Sheep Drive on 24 September, in and around London Bridge.
• 18.05.2017 – Pint of Science talk a sell-out
  Our wind and solar renewables experiences featured in a sold-out ‘People and Planet’ stream of the annual Pint of Science lectures in Portsmouth…
• 21.08.2016 – Upcoming exhibition at the Wool Fair
  We will be exhibiting our products at the Wool Fair and Sheep Drive in Central London on 25 September 2016.
• 05.08.2016 – Lambs in blankets?
  Anyone interested in delicious grass-fed lamb? Butchered and served up with a blanket!
• 16.07.2016 – Shearing complete for another year
  A record number of Shetlands and Hebrideans sheared this year.
• 02.07.2016 – Ascog Wool website launches
  A dedicated Ascog Wool website has been launched, featuring all the best woollens from our speciality breeds…
• 22.07.2015 – Tory Government significantly reduces solar FiTs
  Hot on the heals of a renewables planning success the Tory Government is seemingly intent on killing off small-scale renewables projects…
• 12.12.2014 – Solar photovoltaic array granted planning permission
  Not all renewable planning applications on Bute are doomed to failure! Ascog Farm succeeds in planning for a 250kW solar PV array…
• 04.12.2013 – DPEA Reporter R.M.Hickman CBE MA BA DipTP MRTPI dismisses Ascog Farm turbine appeal
  Unfortunately, but not unsurprisingly, one member of the Royal Town Planning Institute does not disagree with others. Views, golfers, or climate change… It’s a NO to renewable energy at Ascog Farm from the planning system!
• 16.08.2013 – Planning Appeal lodged with DPEA
  The Scottish Government’s Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals to consider Argyll & Bute Council’s refusal of Ascog turbines.
• 22.05.2013 – Argyll & Bute Council refuses Ascog Farm turbine application 12/02202/PP
  Following less than five minutes of ‘debate’ Argyll & Bute Council’s Planning Committee refuses consent for planning permission for three community benefit wind turbines at Ascog Farm
• 16.05.2013 – Argyll & Bute planners ‘recommend refusal’ of Ascog Farm turbines
  Views, views, views! Hardly an unexpected recommendation from the planning officers but who’s making invisible wind turbines?
• 26.04.2013 – Developing an onshore wind farm on Bute – an experiential perspective on policy and planning
  A recent paper presented to the Planning and Environment Research Group Sustainable Transitions conference of the Royal Geographical Society.
• 12.04.2013 – Take NOTE the NIMBYs are going BANANAs!
  Revised plans for turbines at Toward prompt Not Over There Either (NOTE) or Build Absolutely Nothing Anything Near Anywhere (BANANA) objections from some familiar Ascog names!
• 05.04.2013 – Rothesay ‘escapes’ notorious Plook on a Plinth award
  Phew! That’s a relief! Although The Buteman reveals at least one tourist won’t be back. Time to think of ways to raise money for regeneration?
• 29.03.2013 – Bute spared worst of unseasonal winter blast
  Lucky escape for Bute as nearby Arran is plastered by a huge dump of snow; these sorts of severe weather events do not make life easy for farmers…
• 15.03.2013 – Noise data for Ascog wind turbines approved by Environmental Health Officers
  We have always said noise from wind turbines at Ascog will not cause a problem, the Council’s EHOs agree…
• 22.02.2013 – Hard times ahead
  Council approves substantial budget cuts. Time to think about alternate sources of income?
• 08.02.2013 – Give up and do nothing
  What Bute needs to ensure its future prosperity is more of the same – with some extra job cuts thrown in…
• 01.02.2013 – Argyll & Bute budget cuts put jobs under fire
  Guess what? The Council are one of the largest employers on Bute…
• 25.01.2013 – Mount Stuart ‘hits out’ at Historic Scotland
  As news comes in that parts of Rothesay are amongst the most deprived in Scotland…
• 18.01.2013 – Community Benefit payments (unfairly) called in to question
  Better regenerate the place using all that public money sitting out there…
• 05.01.2013 – ‘Up close and personal at Ascog turbine site’
  Buteman article details a worthwhile open day held at the farm the other week…
• 28.12.2012 – ‘Developer to press on with Ascog wind farm application’
  The Buteman’s article title says it all this week…
• 21.12.2012 – Not for the first time have planners expressed ‘concern’ over Ascog wind farm
  A year ago an ‘avalanche of concern’ now there’s more of the same!
• 14.12.2012 – Michael Russell MSP surprised by ‘personal abuse’ in wind farm debate
  Local SNP MSP ‘won’t be drawn on Ascog Wind farm’ plan while Scottish Natural Heritage get back to the Council…
• 11.12.2012 – Policy makers: Where should turbines go?
  Governments want more renewable energy (and more community renewable energy projects) but where should turbines go?
• 10.12.2012 – Grossly inaccurate ‘Scottish’ Daily Mail article!
  The media onslaught continues as the fanatically anti-turbine ‘Scottish’ Daily Mail joins the fray! Believe everything you read in the papers?
• 07.12.2012 – ‘Nowhere in Scotland is safe’
  Some letter writers comment about the creeping turbine monstrosities. Others have noticed they’re already here…
• 30.11.2012 – Yet more wind turbine debate in The Buteman this week
  The debate about wind turbines continues to ‘rage on’ and on and on and on and on…
• 23.11.2012 – This week’s Buteman is a bumper wind edition!
  Delayed reaction to planning application? Play catch-up in The Buteman this week…
• 21.11.2012 – Bute Community Council considers plans for wind turbines at Ascog
  A last minute invitation to speak at the BCC meeting…
• 16.11.2012 – Infrasound myth raised again! Are the objectors trying to frighten everyone?
  Leading light in anti-wind campaign again raises spectre of infrasound and low frequency noise. Aaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh…
• 14.11.2012 – Understanding local demographics, and potential community benefits
  It is worth understanding and visualising economic conditions on Bute. This data should help a little…
• 11.11.2012 – The campaign of misinformation gathers pace!
  Flyers are being delivered door-to-door around Bute trying to frighten people into objecting to our community benefit wind energy scheme. Wonder who’s to blame?
• 10.11.2012 – Blue water separates?
  Inhabitants of Bute are an Island-race. Are they immune to world events? Ask not for whom the bell tolls….
• 08.10.2012 – The calm before the storm…
  There has been a dearth of wind-related letters to The Buteman lately but we suspect that’s about to change.
• 03.08.2012 – Love thy neighbour?
  It seems the same bunch of ‘locals’ are objecting to everything on or around Bute!
• 27.07.2012 – Wind debate rages on!
  Someone gets their facts wrong… someone else gets their facts right…
• 27.07.2012 – A bit more news of anti-wind objectors at Bute Community Council meeting
  Some only moved here three or four years ago, think it’s beautiful and ‘would like it to stay that way’…
• 20.07.2012 – Anti-wind campaigners get their objections in before planning application is even lodged!
  In what might be a first, ‘very scared’ local campaigners fight back against a planning application that hasn’t even been made…
• 20.07.2012 – ‘Squiffed logic’ and ‘Blighted horizons’!
  Two of our favourite letter writers have contributed this week…
• 13.07.2012 – Two steps forward one step back
  2:1 victory for wind energy in the local paper this week…
• 06.07.2012 – ‘Wind turbines are three armed bandits’
  ‘Comedy horror’ in The Buteman this week as local anti-wind protestor starts foaming at the mouth…
• 06.07.2012 – ‘Reasons for hating wind farms’
  Apparently ‘noise’, the ‘ease’ of the planning process and ‘subsidies’ are the reasons for hating wind farms. Maybe for some…
• 28.06.2012 – A ‘wind farmer’s wife’ writes…
  Elspeth writes our second letter to The Buteman following the anti-wind hysteria seen in the Letters pages just recently…
• 21.06.2012 – Deranged? Tory MEP ‘blasts’ Ascog wind farm plan
  Shale gas supporting Tory MEP blasts wind farm proposal! Brain-frying turbine terror and some talk of scaremongering…
• 21.06.2012 – Only Conservative MEP in Scotland ‘opposes’ Ascog windfarm. Quel surprise!
  There aren’t many of them around but they know what they like… oil, gas, shale gas, nuclear etc…
• 04.05.2012 – Trumpety Trumpety Trump!
  First local mention of the ‘wisdom of Trump’! No doubt more will come from his cronies later…
• 27.04.2012 – Does one swallow make a Summer?
  Maybe, but there are more ways than wind turbines to lose visitors to the Island!
• 13.04.2012 – Ardbeg turbines: just the start of something big?
  Three new masts ‘already attracting interest’ according to the Buteman…
• 30.03.2012 – A neighbouring turbine objector writes…
  Local owner of solar-panelled £1m glass Eco house hates turbines and isn’t afraid to throw stones!
• 29.03.2012 – Ardbeg Farm turbines are installed
  Farmers at Ardbeg on Bute have installed three C&F turbines…
• 08.03.2012 – Community Energy Scotland endorses Ascog progress
  Our Community partners are pleased with the met mast progress…
• 01.02.2012 – Less than Beautiful Bute?
  The look of turbines usually comes in for a panning. But what’s this on the doorstep…
• 26.01.2012 – Meteorological mast Day Three
  Buteman, we have Lift Off…
• 25.01.2012 – Meteorological mast Day Two
  Buteman, we have Ignition…
• 24.01.2012 – Meteorological mast Day One
  It’s down from Inverness and getting ready to go up on Bute.
• 20.01.2012 – Renewables survey: full results published
  Quite a few people appear to support renewables on Bute. Surprised?
• 20.01.2012 – Sense and Non-sense?
  The thought of power from the wind is certainly polarising opinion!
• 16.01.2012 – On farm movements
  A good bit of power in the recent storm has moved another couple of things.
• 15.01.2012 – Wall damage
  On closer inspection the march wall really has suffered in the storm.
• 14.01.2012 – Ten Shetland sheep are better than none!
  How true! Something for the dog and jumper lover in all of us…
• 12.01.2012 – Storm damage
  Following the severe storm on the night of 2nd January 2012 there is a lot of wind-blown damage at the farm.
• 06.01.2012 – Bute in the news
  Soup kitchens and three day power cuts on Bute make the BBC Ten O’Clock News.
• 06.01.2012 – Why not use a Green Energy provider, just not one on Bute?
  It’s blowing a gale outside. Let’s buy in green electricity from elsewhere or use small, less efficient turbines!
• 04.01.2012 – Lights out over Bute
  Pass the candles, the lights are oot!
• 23.12.2011 – Wind of Change in Bute’s green attitude
  Some welcome Christmas respite and a Wind of Change?
• 30.09.2011 – Ascog wind developer sets out his plans
  Yes, ‘the man behind plans’ at Ascog is in The Buteman one more time…
• 19.08.2011 – Why is wind power being promoted?
  A concerned resident wonders why wind power is being promoted. Heard of climate change?
• 19.08.2011 – In defence of wind (and capitalism?)…
  Some consideration is required, and this letter sets out a balanced view.
• 11.08.2011 – A deputy lieutenant writes…
  Must we give in to greed and the megawatt temptation? A civic official hopes not…
• 11.08.2011 – A professor writes…
  Our plans for Ascog pale into insignificance against those for Hunterston, a local professor writes…
• 05.08.2011 – Further coverage regarding the wind mast proposal and wind energy
  Our letter to the local paper is accompanied by a balanced editorial and a letter from another member of the public.
• 05.08.2011 – A ‘wind farmer’ writes…
  We write to the paper to explain our hopes and plans for wind energy generation at Ascog Farm.
• 29.07.2011 – ‘An avalanche’ of concern over wind mast proposal
  The local paper highlights the concerns of two dozen local residents.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions.