Easter Ross £36m biogas plant plan by Acorn Energy gets go-ahead after Scottish Government reporter overturns Highland Council’s decision to reject it on appeal
A highly controversial plan for a £36m biogas plant that sparked furious community backlash and was ultimately rejected by Highland Council has been given the green light on appeal.
The Scottish Government's planning appeals process this week overturned the local authority's refusal of Acorn Energy’s bid to build a biogas plant on land near Fearn Aerodrome in Easter Ross.
Ever since the plans were first mooted they have generated strong local pushback, with many of the objectors worrying about a jump in the number of lorries using the area's roads, and a possible fall in air quality from the burning process.#
Indeed, a petition citing concerns over increased heavy goods traffic on roads already busy with Nigg port traffic also soared past 2000 signatures.
Critics have also disputed the applicants’ claims that sufficient straw and other agricultural animal feed for the plant will be sourced locally - which they argue will necessitate longer lorry journeys from further afield to fuel the plant.
And Highland Council’s rejection of the application cited what it felt was an unacceptable risk to aviation safety as well as concerns over the plant's use of vent flares to burn excess biogas, and its proximity to distillery warehouses.
But despite the various objections, the Scottish Government's principal planning reporter, David Buylla, has now rejected many of those concerns and granted the biogas plant permission subject to a string of conditions.
He argued that there was no evidence to suggest a significant environmental impact, and claimed he had "carefully considered" reports into the potential impact of the site given the "significant level of concern" shown by the local community and businesses.
Granting approval, he said: "The environmental impact assessment report predicts that there would be no significant adverse environmental effects from the appeal proposal.
"Other studies that the appellant commissioned reach the same conclusion. I have carefully considered these conclusions in the light of the significant level of concern that has been expressed by local residents and businesses about many of the proposed development’s potential environmental effects."
He continued: "[I] have identified no additional environmental effects that could be significant. I conclude that, subject to mitigation controlled by means of the conditions attached to this notice, there would be no unacceptable residual impacts in regard to any receptor and that the only significant environmental effect from the proposal would be a moderate / major positive climate effect."
Elsewhere, he argued that concerns about lorry movements caused by the plant’s distance from the biogas’s grid injection point past Inverness, were offset by the close proximity of the fuel’s source material.
He acknowledged: “Its remoteness from the grid injection point at Morayston would also necessitate road transportation of the site’s biomethane output, which could have been significantly reduced had the site been situated closer to that facility.
“At first glance, these factors do not support a conclusion that the appeal site is in a sustainable location or that the proposal has the potential to support sustainable travel.”
But he added: “However, any assessment of compliance with these requirements needs to have regard to the specific characteristics of what is proposed.
“I agree with the appellant that the nature of the feedstocks, which would include agricultural waste products as well as crops grown specifically for digestion, suggest the plant should be in a rural location. And the environmental impact assessment report has identified potential sources of such supply within a short travel distance of the site.”
And he concluded: “Taking all factors into account, subject to the proposal having acceptable effects on the environment and on amenity… I find the principle of developing an anaerobic digestion [biogas] plant in this location to be in accordance with the [local] development plan.”
He also argued that the plant’s use of recently grown material to generate the biogas meant the site would not only be ‘carbon neutral’, but offset some of the imports of carbon dioxide brought into the UK for use in industry.
He explained: “As with the biomethane, this carbon dioxide (having been removed from the atmosphere within the preceding 24 months) would, upon release to the atmosphere, be carbon neutral.
“If it replaced sources of carbon dioxide whose manufacture relied upon the consumption of fossil fuels then this would represent a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. The environmental impact assessment report confirms the appellant’s aim to produce approximately 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum, which would be the equivalent of around 5.5 per cent of the quantity of carbon dioxide that is currently imported into the UK.”
Addressing concerns over aviation safety, he argued that the plant would be located far enough away from the nearby aerodrome runway for it not to pose a risk to aircraft, either visually or through any flaring.
After granting approval, he attached a number of conditions to it, including the need for traffic and odour management plans to be in place before development begins.
