COMMUNITY leaders in Moffat hit the street this week to survey residents about their views on the proposed Scoophill windfarm.
Members of Moffat and District Community Council (MDCC) have been going door-to-door to find out if residents within the town are in favour or opposed to the development.
The results of the survey will be used as part of the MDCC’s contribution to the Scottish Government’s inquiry into the scheme which was put forward by Community Windpower Ltd (CWL) – location above.
The formal public inquiry was triggered after members of Dumfries and Galloway Council’s planning committee in March voted to lodge their opposition with Scottish Ministers to the 60 turbine scheme.
MDCC’s five volunteer teams will be continuing to survey homes until Sunday, but due to limited resources only addresses within the town will be surveyed.
The enquiry into the proposal is set to begin in December in the town hall where the developers, MDCC, community groups and other stakeholders will have the opportunity to give their representations to an agent from the Scottish Government’s Energy Consensus Unit (ECU).
MDCC secretary Mick Barker gave more information about the enquiry following an online meeting between the developers, ECU and the community council.
He said: “There has been the first online discussion about the first mechanism by which the public enquiry will be held.
“A number of representatives from the community and community organisations, the developers and the government planners were at this meeting which set out an initial framework for how it will take place.
“The first observation to make is I thought the guy in charge from the planning authority in Holyrood seemed to be a good, decent and fair chap who was going to make sure everyone gets to have their voices heard and I found that reassuring.
“The second thing is that the planning people have already visited and taken a look at all the various sites, so it seems that they have done their homework.
“The third thing is that they seem to be comfortable to have as much of the enquiry in public and in Moffat as possible, and it is likely therefore that the bulk of discussions will take place in public and here in the town hall in early December.
“There’s all sorts of complexities that the process is going to go through, but it’s likely there will be significant opportunity for the community to be part of the discussion, and it’s likely that there will be opportunity for significant discussion about tourism and the farm’s impact on that as well.
“Those things will take their course and I have already said to the planning committee that we will be taking part in all of the due processes as the community council.”
