9 massive wind farms are proposed for the beautiful Isle of Skye. Over 140 turbines..most 200m metres high are planned, together with overhead pylons and massive trenches to take the power from the island south...

The Isle of Skye, just off the north west coast of mainland Scotland, is world famous for its stunning rugged scenery, jagged black mountain peaks with cascading waterfalls and crystal clear “Fairy Pools”.

Despite a thriving tourist industry which brings many thousands of visitors each year to enjoy the spectacular countryside, the landscape is now under threat from proposals to build nearly 150 giant wind turbines at nine wind farms, spread across the island from Breakish in the south to Waternish in the north.

The island has been home to two “smaller” wind farms near Edinbane in the north west for nearly 20 years. The current wind turbines are 100m high which, the owners claim, produce ten times the electricity needed to power all the homes on Skye. 

Now the beautiful island faces plans to build 7 more wind farms and to rebuild the existing wind farms with turbines twice as high - standing at a massive 200m, they will tower over the countryside and be visible from as far away as the Outer Hebrides and the Scottish mainland.

The developers of these wind farms offer a tiny amount of “community benefits” (often less than 1% of profits) to sweeten the local residents. Meanwhile, in a repeat of the give away of Scotland’s oil money,  the vast profits will be stripped from Skye by the developers who are mostly owned by overseas investment companies. 

A massive power line running from Skye into the heart of the Highlands on the mainland is also planned..bringing huge pylons and 50m wide trenches to Scotland’s most iconic scenery. 

The wind farm proposals will result in the excavation of many hundreds of thousands of tonnes of grade 1 peat - a rare and protected habitat and carbon store.  Each concrete base for a turbine will require more than 2000 tonnes of concrete and steel. There will be road traffic chaos and road closures over several years as the 76m long blades are carried to the sites on huge vehicles. Rare birds will have their nesting habitats destroyed and many will be killed by the blades once the "farms" are operational.

With this petition we ask for:

A  freeze on any further large scale privately owned wind farms on Skye, beyond those already having planning consent.

A full Public Inquiry into all the proposed wind farms and the Skye Reinforcement Power Line.

A comprehensive programme of support and access to loans to enable communities to build their own small scale wind farms which would return far more income for local people and cause far less damage to the local environment.

Proposals for repowering at Edinbane and Ben Aketil wind farms should be limited to replacing existing turbines at end of life with the same number and the same size.

More information and action you can take to help here: The Skye Wind Farm Information Group