HI All

A very belated Happy New Year to you all.

We hope you all had a peaceful break. We had a chance to recharge our batteries, but for the last 2 weeks have been working flat out to submit a whole range of documents in preparation for the upcoming windfarm Inquiry. An overview of the process and next steps is as follows:

19th January (yesterday)- Submission of Core documents such as Inquiry statements, habitat pictures, maps, expert reports, the scientific literature we will rely on etc.

14th February- Submission of our witness statements

2nd March- Inquiry hearing

As you can see proceedings are coming to a head. When we are able to, we will share with you some of the documents we have submitted so that you are fully up to speed. Here is an overview of some of the key points that have emerged through the exchange of documentation.

1.       Our Specialist Ecologist has identified a total of 62 points of deficiency or failure in the Environmental Impact Assessment carried out by Vattenfall. In particular, their wildcat sections are absolutely awful, non-compliant and inadequate.

2.       There is a high degree of agreement between our database and the government’s database, confirming, that the Clashindarroch does indeed contain the highest density of Wildcats in Scotland and Vattenfall even concede that the forest is a site of National importance for wildcats.

3.       Vattenfall concede that their planned windfarm expansion will directly impact 5 wildcat territories which constitutes disturbing and displacing up to 20% of the world population.

As we go through this process and the paperwork comes together, it is becoming clearer and clearer how inappropriate and just plain wrong this application is. It also points to an arrogance from Vattenfall, a company owned entirely by the Swedish government, that they think it is acceptable to destroy an integral part of Scotland’s natural and cultural heritage. And just for clarity we are fully supportive of renewable energy schemes if is the right development for the right sight. This proposal clearly isn’t that.

However we fight on and will see this through all the way to the end, and are prepared to go all the way to Judicial Review if we need to. If you want to find out more about our work and support campaign then you can do so at this crowdfunder link.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/wildcats/

Yours help as always is massively appreciated and vital to our continuing legal challenge.

Finally, we wanted to let you all know that Finlay is doing extremely well and we will provide a full update with our release plans for him, as well as some beautiful recent video. We will plan to put the update out on Monday so keep watching.

Many thanks as always

The Wildcat Haven team.