A just transition or the industrialisation of the Highlands?

Cathie Lloyd underlines the case for making far more careful use of our country's natural resources, in a piece drawing on the insights of people with a background in marine and agricultural research as well as the experience of living with the challenges which there are so often in Wester Ross.

Communities in the Highlands are increasingly concerned about energy projects which ignore their needs and which threaten to industrialise parts of the countryside. A meeting of more than 50 community councils in June called for the pace and scale of energy projects to be paused – expressing concern about the lack of local benefits as major infrastructure directs energy south of the border. These concerns are not coming from far-right climate crisis deniers, but from people who live close to the land, some off-grid.

The large-scale developers of windfarms are seen as largely unaccountable entities remote from the communities where they are being built over fragile habitats such as peatbogs and through designated Marine Protected Areas. There are growing numbers of questions being raised about the ownership and construction practices behind the exploitation of our energy resources. How much do city dwellers understand about how energy is produced, and its impact on local environments – in much the same way as we are increasingly aware of the circumstances of our food production? We are far from having exhausted the possibilities of our urban areas being able to produce energy and using the available resources carefully through district heating schemes for example. The case of a major cable being planned to transmit energy from the Outer Hebrides to the Scottish mainland across The Minch to land in Little Loch Broom (about 10 km south of Ullapool) shows the depth of feeling about these constructions. The capacity of this project has already been tripled since planning … triggering concerns about electromagnetic fields which have been shown to disrupt marine life including flapperskate who are particularly sensitive.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks plc (SSEN) is partly owned by a Canadian Pension Company. It controls the electricity network, the Western Isles HVDC link project cable which is due to come ashore at Little Loch Broom. From Dundonnell it is proposed to continue underground to the converter station at Beauly where it joins the national grid, the privatised entity which manages demand and has overall responsibility for projects in the UK.

Local concerns about this massive project are wide ranging. The loch has been part of a Nature Conservation Marine Protected Area since 2014. A progress report from Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission plc shows the proposed route of the subsea cable from Arnish Point (Stornoway) across the Minch (the stretch of water between the Western Isles and the mainland) to landfall at Little Loch Broom and Dundonnell.

The Wester Ross Biosphere provides a detailed picture of the species likely to be affected by the development including Octopus, Great Northern divers, Sea Eagles, Otters and the endangered flapper skate. Below the surface lie the beautiful Maerl beds, formed by calcified red seaweeds which create an extensive habitat on the seabed where many fish species spawn, including Herring which are just beginning to recover after overfishing decimated their populations. Maerl is known as Scotland’s Great Barrier Reef such is its importance, the MPA’s were created specifically for its protection. It is also home to the fantastic Eelgrass which also provides important nursery habitats for small fish, Cuttlefish, shellfish, Rays and three species of the unusual Sea pen (filter feeders) endemic to the North Atlantic.

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Marine biologists are particularly concerned about the flapper skate which is red-listed (critically) endangered and thought to have a nursery in Little Loch Broom. Flapper skates develop for more than a year on the sea bed before hatching and take ten years to reach maturity, so are slow to recover from any disruption. It has been illegal to land flapper skate here since 2009 although some have been caught and quickly released.

Highlands Community Councils are due to meet with elected representatives on 12^th August. They will promote their Unified Statement which recognises the climate crisis while opposing the unjust industrialisation of the Highlands, calls on elected representatives to protect their interests at national level, for a Scottish Government planning commission to address the cumulative impact of major renewable infrastructure in a coherent way, avoiding the ‘salami sliced’ current approach, and to pause major infrastructure until a coherent national strategy can be developed. Local people are awaiting details of a new meeting with the developers in September in Dundonnell.  Their main concerns are about potential damage to seabed habitats and spawning grounds. A pause in the project would allow for an economic impact assessment to highlight potential negative impacts on the local tourism-dependent economy. Underlying concerns are bound up with the lack of an integrated energy plan in which many companies jump on the energy bandwagon to make lots of money at the expense of the environment and local communities, while compliant councils pass planning applications in the face of considerable local opposition. Mega projects such as these are seen as asset stripping Scotland for gain outwith and despite local communities.

In the present political system, it is difficult to see an easy solution to these problems. Energy production is a matter reserved to Westminster and the Scottish Government is eager to push for ‘growth’. Resources, political energy and will could muster the opportunity for local energy schemes such as district heating owned by local authorities. Communities will continue to question the unthinking attachment to the mantra of ‘growth’ from the perspective of their existence, close to the land and motivated by concerns about damage to the environment which cannot be easily repaired – all in the name of a just transition to a green economy. It is important that their objections are not seen as ‘nimbyism’ but as an appeal to a considered reorganisation away from fossil fuels which is not dominated by a rapacious search for profit. Otherwise, we risk seeing an industrialisation of the Highlands of little benefit for its communities.

Published 29 July 2025, with huge thanks to Sue Pomeroy and Lesley Spenceley for information about Little Loch Broom and their comments on an earlier version of this article. Thanks, too, to Sue for the photograph, looking along the shores of Little Loch Broom. Readers are also advised of a recent book by Marianne Brown, which covers similar issues in relation to Shetland: The Shetland Way.