Save the Deveron Valley: A Living Landscape Needs A Fair Energy Plan
The Issue
Please sign for a fair energy plan
SSEN Transmission is considering where to place the proposed Strathbogie Hub — a new 400kV substation and HVDC converter station to the north-east of Huntly, forming part of Shetland HVDC Link 2.
SSEN’s published plans include an underground cable of approximately 30km from the Aberdeenshire coast. Cruchie and Rivestone remain the two shortlisted hub locations, and ground investigations are under way at both to inform site selection.
Ground investigations are not planning permission. The choice has not yet been put through a future planning application. This is the moment for proper scrutiny.
This petition is not asking for one farming family, village or rural community to be sacrificed instead of another. It asks for a fair, transparent and evidence-led process before any preferred site is selected.
I live in the Deveron Valley. This is not empty land on a map. It is farms, homes, narrow roads, rivers and burns, working soil, wildlife habitat, family memory and community life. People should not need to become planning, engineering and ecology specialists simply to understand what may reshape the place they call home.
We are asking for five things
1. Cumulative assessment
Assess relevant overlapping pressures together where they may interact — including the hub and cable, transmission connections, energy developments, quarry and construction traffic, changing land use, road constraints and any known or reasonably foreseeable associated development.
2. Clear information and fair comparison
Publish enough like-for-like environmental, technical, cost, landscape, access, farming and community evidence to explain how both shortlisted options were assessed, how factors were weighted, what remains uncertain and why any preferred site is judged the least constrained and best justified.
3. Protection for wildlife, habitat and water
Assess the River Deveron as a connected living catchment, including burns, drainage, wetlands, soils, private water supplies, pollution routes and fish habitat. Use appropriate seasonal surveys and protect sensitive wildlife locations.
4. Independent road-safety assessment
Assess the whole journey for HGVs and abnormal loads — including narrow roads, bridges and underpasses, diversions, school and nursery routes, farm access, winter conditions, emergency access and the cumulative traffic from overlapping projects.
5. Meaningful participation and accountability
Hold a dedicated Rothiemay-area consultation before site selection hardens. Publish material answers and accessible maps and visualisations. Show who monitors conditions, who enforces them, what can stop work and who pays if mitigation fails.
For those who want the deeper picture
A fair decision must count more than the engineering footprint. It must examine working farmland and biosecurity; landscape and heritage; the living river catchment; habitat connectivity; daily road use; fire and emergency resilience; whole-life carbon, materials, water and waste; the human burden of prolonged uncertainty; and the full infrastructure and demand assumptions shaping the proposal.
Save the Deveron Valley is not claiming that a formal BESS, data-centre, private-wire or energy-park proposal is attached to either shortlisted site. We are asking whether any such current, contracted, likely, enabled or reasonably foreseeable infrastructure — or its electricity demand — has influenced the hub’s need, scale, capacity, location or expansion potential. If not, say so. If it has, assess and explain it.
Community benefit must never be used as a substitute for proper assessment, meaningful participation or avoidance of unnecessary harm.
Read the public evidence and Full Impact Ledger at SaveTheDeveron.org.
Signing this petition is not a substitute for responding to a future planning application. It is a visible public signal that the Deveron Valley deserves proper scrutiny before decisions harden.
This is a living landscape, not spare land.
Power should serve life — not the other way round.
Your valley. Your voice.
SaveTheDeveron.org
608
The Issue
Please sign for a fair energy plan
SSEN Transmission is considering where to place the proposed Strathbogie Hub — a new 400kV substation and HVDC converter station to the north-east of Huntly, forming part of Shetland HVDC Link 2.
SSEN’s published plans include an underground cable of approximately 30km from the Aberdeenshire coast. Cruchie and Rivestone remain the two shortlisted hub locations, and ground investigations are under way at both to inform site selection.
Ground investigations are not planning permission. The choice has not yet been put through a future planning application. This is the moment for proper scrutiny.
This petition is not asking for one farming family, village or rural community to be sacrificed instead of another. It asks for a fair, transparent and evidence-led process before any preferred site is selected.
I live in the Deveron Valley. This is not empty land on a map. It is farms, homes, narrow roads, rivers and burns, working soil, wildlife habitat, family memory and community life. People should not need to become planning, engineering and ecology specialists simply to understand what may reshape the place they call home.
We are asking for five things
1. Cumulative assessment
Assess relevant overlapping pressures together where they may interact — including the hub and cable, transmission connections, energy developments, quarry and construction traffic, changing land use, road constraints and any known or reasonably foreseeable associated development.
2. Clear information and fair comparison
Publish enough like-for-like environmental, technical, cost, landscape, access, farming and community evidence to explain how both shortlisted options were assessed, how factors were weighted, what remains uncertain and why any preferred site is judged the least constrained and best justified.
3. Protection for wildlife, habitat and water
Assess the River Deveron as a connected living catchment, including burns, drainage, wetlands, soils, private water supplies, pollution routes and fish habitat. Use appropriate seasonal surveys and protect sensitive wildlife locations.
4. Independent road-safety assessment
Assess the whole journey for HGVs and abnormal loads — including narrow roads, bridges and underpasses, diversions, school and nursery routes, farm access, winter conditions, emergency access and the cumulative traffic from overlapping projects.
5. Meaningful participation and accountability
Hold a dedicated Rothiemay-area consultation before site selection hardens. Publish material answers and accessible maps and visualisations. Show who monitors conditions, who enforces them, what can stop work and who pays if mitigation fails.
For those who want the deeper picture
A fair decision must count more than the engineering footprint. It must examine working farmland and biosecurity; landscape and heritage; the living river catchment; habitat connectivity; daily road use; fire and emergency resilience; whole-life carbon, materials, water and waste; the human burden of prolonged uncertainty; and the full infrastructure and demand assumptions shaping the proposal.
Save the Deveron Valley is not claiming that a formal BESS, data-centre, private-wire or energy-park proposal is attached to either shortlisted site. We are asking whether any such current, contracted, likely, enabled or reasonably foreseeable infrastructure — or its electricity demand — has influenced the hub’s need, scale, capacity, location or expansion potential. If not, say so. If it has, assess and explain it.
Community benefit must never be used as a substitute for proper assessment, meaningful participation or avoidance of unnecessary harm.
Read the public evidence and Full Impact Ledger at SaveTheDeveron.org.
Signing this petition is not a substitute for responding to a future planning application. It is a visible public signal that the Deveron Valley deserves proper scrutiny before decisions harden.
This is a living landscape, not spare land.
Power should serve life — not the other way round.
Your valley. Your voice.
SaveTheDeveron.org
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Petition created on 19 June 2026