{"id":704224,"date":"2026-01-18T12:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T12:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/704224\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T12:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T12:36:09","slug":"campaigners-challenge-government-over-renewable-energy-developments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/704224\/","title":{"rendered":"Campaigners challenge government over renewable energy developments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy gathers pace, the location of infrastructure to support the change has become increasingly contentious.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">From a trickle of wind farm applications in areas like the Borders and the Highlands a decade ago, many rural communities are now facing a flood of development proposals for increasingly higher turbines, battery energy compounds, vast solar parks and new electricity sub stations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Highlands councillor Helen Crawford began a push back last year which led to a unified statement on behalf of 50 community councils in her area being sent to Holyrood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As well as asking the government to oppose the &#8220;industrialisation&#8221; of the countryside and protect communities, the appeal called for a planning inquiry, and  all major applications to be paused.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Councillor Crawford, who was a guest speaker at the Jedburgh convention on Saturday, said: &#8220;We need an urgent review of what is happening to our countryside &#8211; people from Shetland to here in the Borders are deeply concerned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We are starting to come together and that unified voice is powerful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It is becoming increasingly difficult for the Scottish government to ignore what rural communities are saying.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy gathers pace, the location of infrastructure to support the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-704224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115916136940812747","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}