Click here to go back to the Home page.

Public Inquiry Confirmed

Exactly a year after some of us spoke to Malcolm Bruce MP and Nora Radcliffe MSP on their summer visit to Glass Anne Forbes has had a letter from her enclosing one from Allan Wilson, Deputy Minister for Enterprise & Lifelong Learning with the news we have been waiting for.

This letter states that
'we are of the view that we cannot give effect to the Moray Council objection and have therefore set in train the arrangements for a Public Local Inquiry, which will be the responsibility of the Scottish Executive Inquiry Reporters Unit.

'It goes on to say:
In the case of the original Clashindarroch application the closing date was 1 March 2004, but following the submission of additional information on 1 September 2004, the closing date was extended to 5 October 2004 and that consultation expired then who will then make a decision on whether to invite those whose representations were submitted after the expiry date should be invited to submit their case to the PLI.'

This last rather confusing sentence must refer to many of us whose letters would have reached them after the official expiry date due to conflicting information we received about that date. Those who made representations will be informed of the arrangements by letter.

Anne has sent the following letter to Mrs Radcliffe to seek further information.

Dear Mrs. Radcliffe,

Thank you very much for your letter of 16th August informing us that the Clashindarroch Windfarm Proposal was going to a local public inquiry and enclosing Deputy Minister, Allan Wilson's letter to that effect. However, the last sentence of the first paragraph on page 2 of Allan Wilson's letter is extremely confusing. A large chunk of the sentence seems to have been omitted.

I telephoned Allan Wilson's department in the hope of clarification and spoke to a Mr. Paul Smith, Consents Officer who told me that all representations from the public received after the original closing date right up to when Moray Council sent their decision (I.e. after their re-extended deadline to 21st January meeting) would be considered by the Minister and would be on their department's data base. However, the Reporter will decide if he takes into consideration any representations received after the original closing date. This seems very unfair to the public, especially as the additional environmental impact assessment reports had not been received then. Most of us did not know about this 5th October closing date? Did you know about it? If so, it is surprising that you did not mention it when you met us in August last year, nor were the three additional environmental impact assessment reports mentioned at that meeting nor in correspondence after it. At our Glass public meeting in November you said in your report that we had a window of opportunity to send our representations via Moray Council. It does not seem right that our reactions to the new reports might not be considered in the inquiry. As you know, we understood that we had until 15th December.

I also asked how we would know if our representations were to be considered or not. Would it be by merely not getting a letter from the Reporter? He was not able to answer that. I asked when the letters would be likely to be sent out. He said he thought near the time of the Inquiry i.e. in six or nine month's time. This is surely not good enough. Would you be kind enough to look into these matter for us?

Yours sincerely,
Anne L. Forbes

Mike Davies 23 August 2005

Click here to go back to the Home page.