A POLITICAL party set up to stop the spread of wind farms has folded - because its leaders are too busy fighting turbines on their own doorstep.

The Alliance Party of Scotland was launched in Inverness last year to fight the Government's renewable energy policy and the expansion of wind power.

It planned to field candidates in the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections against politicians associated with the growth of wind farms, with First Minister Alex Salmond's Aberdeenshire East seat and Energy Minister Fergus Ewing's Inverness and Nairn constituency earmarked as likely targets. But there has been no time to go out on the campaign trail, promoting the party.

Pat Wells, convener of Strathdearn Against Windfarm Developments, the campaigning group south east of Inverness, said: "There is no doubt about the strength of feeling against wind farms across Scotland, we are all just being carpet bombed by wind turbines. But the focus of campaigning has to be local.

"Much as we would like to have had much more on a national level, we have just been flat out and don't have time. It is quite a dilemma."