Today Friday 13 February 2026, the Scottish Government’s opaque Energy Consents Unit issued consent for 8 monster turbines in the Lammermuirs designated Special Landscape Area. The ECU decision disregards the Scottish Borders Planning Committee, which objected to this speculation September 2025.
Local authority objection should trigger an automatic Public Inquiry. However, due to large volumes of additional information from EPower, headquartered in Cork, Ireland, the SBC planning department missed the deadline, or ECU failed to extend the deadline. Either way the Energy Consents Unit has used a technical point to avoid the full scrutiny of a deeply flawed application.
We are heart sore for the people at Carfrae, the hamlet below this speculation, whose residential amenity value would be trashed, if this ill conceived development goes ahead.
At 200 metres tall, some of the 8 turbines would be taller than three Scott Monuments stacked on top of each other. This sprawling windfarm’s paltry output would make no meaningful contribution to reliable electricity supply, energy security, or global average temperatures. It would, however, industrialise and trash a much loved corner of Lauderdale and the Lammermuirs.
We must ask: is this worth it? 2,300 acres of moorland, peat, burns and woodland covered in access tracks, aggressive drainage ditches, concrete bases, rows of shipping containers full of lithium batteries. All topped off by giant monsters, lit up red at night. Killing bats, displacing raptors and blocking migrating birds. All for a tiny amount of intermittent, expensive electricity?