A coalition of businesses has called on one of the UK’s most powerful charities to stop fighting plans for a major off-shore wind farm and warned that the livelihoods of hundreds of families are at stake. Twenty-nine companies claim that the continued legal action by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) could further delay or even kill off the £2 billion renewable energy scheme and the 600 jobs involved in it. An appeal to the Supreme Court in London by the RSPB, announced yesterday, challenges the approval given by Scottish ministers to the Neart na Gaoithe (NnG) offshore wind farm off the east coast of Scotland. The charity is to ask the court for leave to appeal against a Court of Session decision earlier this year which gave the green light to one of Scotland’s largest offshore energy projects. Mainstream Renewable Power, the wind farm’s developer, has said that it estimates the project would bring an additional £610 million in revenue into the regional economy. A full-page advertisement in national newspapers today says that the RSPB’s action would further delay a project first planned ten years ago and given consent to by the Scottish government in 2014; it has been dragged through the courts ever since.
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The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is stepping outside its charitable brief in mounting a legal challenge to Scottish ministers over their decision to approve the Firth of Forth offshore wind farm. It opposes the development, not because it believes it would kill thousands of seabirds, but because it says the basis on which the government reached its decision is wrong. In effect it is seeking to oppose the rights of parliament in environmental matters and give them to the courts instead. The charity has lost that argument at the Inner House of the Court of Session – the highest court in the land – and now intends taking it to the Supreme Court in London, seeking leave to appeal against the decision. It is likely to receive a dusty answer from judges there but the more serious question is why it is spending thousands of pounds, both of its members’ subscriptions and public funds (for it receives government money as well), to take on a political issue.
Times 16th Aug 2017 read more »