Council rejects Airtricity plan

Local councillors have shot down Airtricity's plans for a wind farm in the Borders region of Scotland.

The building and development committee of the Scottish Borders Council has refused the Irish company permission for a 10-turbine wind farm at Langhope Rig in the south-east of Scotland.

The local authority said that it was concerned at the "visual impact" which the wind farm's proposed 10 turbines would have.

Airtricity, which recently raised €92 million to fund two other wind farms in Scotland, said it was "extremely disappointed" with the council's rejection of its plans.

Its Scotland chief executive, Alan Baker, said: "The wind farm had the full support of the council's planning and landscape officials and had attracted no objections from either Scottish Natural Heritage (a government agency) or the Scottish Environment Protection Agency," he said.

"The main objection was in relation to its visual impact. One of the main reasons Airtricity chose to proceed with this site was because of its limited visibility in the Borders area."

The Langhope wind farm would have had the capacity to generate 23 megawatts (mw) of electricity, which the company said would have supplied about 12,860 homes.

Airtricity operates a 24mw wind farm at Ardrossan in north Ayrshire in the west of Scotland. Its biggest facility is a 72mw wind farm in Stirling in the centre of the country.

The Stirling wind farm has yet to be completed, but Airtricity did turn on one of its turbines in February.

The company is building two plants, one with a 36.8mw capacity, the other with 30mw, in Dumfries and Galloway in the south-west of Scotland. These are due to be completed in 2008.

The Irish group recently raised €92 million to fund these two projects.

German bank Norddeutsche Landesbank is providing the cash through a 15-year loan.

Airtricity has operations in Ireland, the UK and the US, where it recently announced that it was investing €1 billion in a wind farm in Texas.