At first there was a marked reticence to participate in the project Denise Davis was launching. The Highlanders she lives among are not renowned for sharing their feelings.
But, little by little, the testimonies trickled in. It became a steady stream – then an avalanche.
The contributors’ words are awash with feelings: grief, rage, despair, horror. Tears flowed as they were written. Collectively they are a howl of pain from deep within the soul of rural Scotland.
Now they have been formed into a book of protest against the ravaging of Scotland’s landscape by big energy companies – and against the politicians letting them do it.
Indeed, copies will be landing in many of their in-trays in the coming days.
Every member of Highland Council’s planning committee is getting one hand-delivered. Others are being posted out to MSPs.
The book, Testimonials, by ‘the people of the glens’, was sparked by plans – which were submitted this month by Scottish and Southern Energy Networks (SSEN) – for the UK’s largest electricity substation at Fanellan near Beauly, Inverness-shire.
At 868 acres, the proposed site is four and a half times the area of Glasgow Airport. It will be linked to monster pylons snaking down from the far north, bringing power from the wind farms – springing up at a bewildering rate in the Highlands – to the centres of population.
Pylons already cross the Highland landscape, with even larger ones planned
The Beauly Power Station Which Sends Electricity From Beauly To Denny
Some of the writers stand to lose their homes. Others fear they are losing their minds. Most are losing sleep. All have lost faith.
Their accounts reflect the impact on the people, homes and wildlife considered collateral damage in the ‘gold rush’ of prospectors cashing in on the Net Zero race.
They lament the deafening silence of local politicians, the Scottish Government’s role as enablers in the programme of destruction and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s recent declaration of war against the Nimby culture holding up infrastructure projects.
His government now proposes to ‘streamline the consent process’ in Scotland by halving the time it takes energy projects to progress through the planning stage.
Ms Davis, who compiled the book with fellow members of campaign group Communities B4 Power Companies, said the testimonies from across the Highlands and Islands, Aberdeenshire and Angus had brought her to tears.
She said: ‘The level of suffering amongst the rural population and the increase in symptoms which I have witnessed and read in the testimonials is too high to be ignored or regarded as trivial.’
Here the Mail presents a small sample of the dozens of personal testimonies on which politicians are now urged to dwell.
Dan Bailey, Strathpeffer
Faced with the big energy onslaught in our area, and the oncoming march of monster pylons, my feelings are so strong that I often struggle to concentrate on daily life: worry, loss, and anger are the overriding emotions.
Dan Bailey says he struggles to concentrate on daily life because of the stress caused by pylons
It’s a dread constantly niggling in the back of my mind, which surfaces whenever I look at a view soon to be despoiled forever, speak with a concerned neighbour, or learn of yet another proposal to add more giant infrastructure to our region.
There is no escape from these feelings. We can’t just think about something else because we know it will consume our communities and the places we love. I often lose sleep over it.
I feel an aching sadness every time I step out of the door, a premonition of profound loss.
Taking my daily walk through beautiful woods, and past nature-rich lochans, on trails beloved by walkers and bikers, I am reminded every time that soon these woods will be felled in a giant swathe, access roads will be bulldozed through the birch and Scots pine, nature will be squashed and enormous pylons will dominate forever more.
The utter destruction of the place we hold dear is bearing down on us, a huge and terrible sense of threat. I cannot look at a beautiful scene without marking it down in my head as doomed.
My bitterness towards the policy makers and big business interests ruining our lives grows daily. It’s not a nice feeling, but anger is an energy – and if there is one thing above all else that I feel, it is this: I’ll be damned if I’m going to roll over and let these bullies win.
Simon Bates, Jamestown, Strathpeffer
Drip. Drip. Drip. It’s a slow torture. Yet another planning application to get your head around. The jigsaw puzzle that is the UK’s unplanned Net Zero programme is emerging from the mist.
A sign at Kilmorack Gallery near Beauly, where SSEN are carrying out extensions to the existing pylons and power station
One thing that is clear, though, is that it will destroy many local people’s deliberately tranquil lives and destroy the last wilderness that is the Highlands. All for the benefit of big business.
Scotland has enough renewable energy already. These applications are now all we can think about. We’re angry.
We’re disenfranchised. We’re ignored. We’re stressed. We will now need to move, having settled nicely into our retirement. We don’t want to, but we are forced to. We despair.
Author Sally Huband, Shetland
I lived 2.5km from the nearest turbine of the Viking wind farm in Shetland but was forced to sell my home after being injured by the subaudible acoustic pollution of the 155m high and 4.3MW Vesta turbines.
My ears would pop while at rest inside my home, feel full and become intensely painful.
This barotrauma caused tinnitus, hyperacusis with pain (when sound causes pain) and horrendous headaches.
My vestibular system was impacted, meaning nausea and a loss of balance. Within a month of the turbines operating, I became sensitised to their emissions.
Sally Huband says wind turbines caused serious health issues
I could tell when the blades were spinning without being able to see them. This was sensory torture.
I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t work. I twice had to pay for respite accommodation.
We did manage to sell our home but selling a house made toxic from turbine pollution is very difficult.
The mental health impacts of being harmed and losing a home and then being gaslit by SSE and the Scottish Government have been severe.
Karen Bell, Rogart, Sutherland
I moved here nine years ago and have built my business around the wonderful natural landscape that surrounds us.
I am a therapist who works with nature connection as part of my practice. I spend much time in reflection with the landscape.
The impact that big energy could have on our eco-systems, ancient woodland, sacred spaces, and the wild open landscapes here has so deeply impacted me that I found myself in a state of deep and dark depression and distress.
Vast swathes of the Highlands have been peppered with wind turbines over the past few decades
I am a balanced person who is used to looking after their mental well-being, but the threat of destruction to all that I hold sacred cut to the bone.
Seeing communities distraught and hearing the stories of those impacted has been like an echo of the trauma caused by the Clearances, the echo of which is still present in the land.
I have spent days in tears, felt completely hopeless and overwhelmed by the sheer bewildering number of windfarm applications we are bombarded with, and the constant lack of clarity from SSEN throughout their process.
Anonymous
It’s the anger you see, it gets you every time. The boiling, surging anger at being unseen, unheard and unvalued. It corrodes your soul. Anger, because soon we shall have a steel monster, a pylon, dwarfing our home.
It is a magical little gamekeeper’s cottage in the woods, with Highland character and charm. The squirrels and deer which live nearby will run from the noise, and the birdsong will be stilled by radiation.
It is cosy and warm here. It is loved. It was built by farmers from hundreds of years ago when the world was calm, decent, and kind.
We won’t be able to sell it now, or move away from the power blight, because the hiss and buzz of the pylon tower and transmission lines will put people off moving here.
Denise Davis has collected the thoughts of Scotlands rural residents into a book of protest against the ravaging of the country’s landscape by big energy companies
And, even if we did find a buyer, much of our life savings, once happily invested in our home, will have gone because we won’t get the true value of the house.
We can’t turn off the noise of ruin.
It horrifies me to think that the people that I voted in to make decisions on my behalf are complicit in this destruction.
Alison and John Wireman, Angus
My husband and I retired to our dream home in the beautiful Angus countryside 16 years ago.
We have since developed a top tourist attraction with our rare-breed farm. Along comes SSEN and their bandwagon of prospectors and boom goes our dream.
My husband spends his precious retirement years as chairman of STIG (Stop Tealing Industrialisation Group).
He spends almost every waking hour researching and attending meetings for the good of our village and, ultimately, our own sanity.
We have never campaigned against a single thing in our lives and definitely didn’t see a 73-year-old needing to learn a whole new vocabulary to stand up for our innocent rights.
Gallery owner Tony Davidson, Kilmorack, Inverness-shire
When large-scale industrialisation threatens nature and communities – our world – on an inconceivable scale you suffer from palpitations, fainting and pre-and-post traumatic stress.
Gallery owner Tony Davidson says his local area is under threat from the industrialisation brought by huge renewable power projects
Your eye notices every bit of yellow and orange in a field, and your heart skips a beat when another large truck towing a fuel bowser rumbles past, when death trundles past.
Matt George, Fanellan, Inverness-shire
Slowly, as the creeping cancer of industry does, it arrives at our front door in the shape of 60-acres of HVDC substation, not forgetting the 868 acres total acquired land at Fanellan.
When we found out over two years ago, I felt like someone had shot me straight through the heart. My wife collapsed to her knees inconsolable; the shock was so bad she actually fainted.
As I write this, work has started around us. We are told these are preliminary works, and of course, most are outside contractors. So even without full planning, our beautiful home is invaded daily.
We have been informed by SSEN and our landlord that eventually we will have to move out. Our 15-plus years of memories will either be turned into offices or just bulldozed away.
Mr George’s wife Annette
The proposed plans for Fanellan have turned our lives upside down. The future we thought we had living in this beautiful place has gone, and we are heavily grieving its loss.
All the concrete and steel that will be used to scar the landscape will never add up to ‘green energy’ in my mind.
Our voices, our neighbours’ voices, have all been dismissed as the words of ‘Nimbys’. Yet who better to speak up for the fields, forests and wildlife that make this area so spectacular and special?
Anonymous, Strathpeffer
Tears are never far away; my chest is tight with stress and frustration caused by the people who are inflicting this on us and who do not think we should object; I cannot bear to think about what is about to happen.
Like others, I do my best to argue against the senselessness of it, sacrificing precious family time and personal resource but constantly being reminded that we are up against the huge power of governments and large companies, and that being right does not make it likely that we will win.
Yi MacLennan, Inverness-shire
I’m now completely unable to ‘switch off’ from all this – it’s messing with my thoughts every day.
On more than one occasion I have left SSEN’s consultations in tears and feeling at a complete loss about what can be done to protect those of us who would have to live with this for the rest of our lives.
I fear for the health of my children and grandchildren – youngest just two years old – who would be living in close proximity to the 400KV overhead power lines.
We are being fobbed off with lies about health statistics – saying the stats regarding childhood leukaemia from high voltage overhead lines aren’t as bad as a microwave in your kitchen.
Just writing this is really upsetting. How many more lives are in turmoil?
Louise Worthy, Sutherland
I regularly walk along a forest road – 300 metres from our home – where the planned SSEN pylon line is due to cross. I see osprey and eagles above, curlew in the fields below.
Huge skeins of geese migrate yearly, guided by the Kyle of Sutherland. It breaks my heart to think what will happen to these beautiful creatures.
These walks used to be a joy but all I can think of is how it will change. It depresses me. I don’t walk as much now. I don’t sleep well. I am exhausted by writing objections, attending so-called consultations.
I feel like giving up but that is what the ‘big energy’ companies want. I have to keep going, but I am drained.
Copies of Testimonials can be requested via www.communitiesb4powercompanies.co.uk