It is the battle of Shepherd’s Rig. On the one side: campaigners from a small rural community, walkers, mountaineers, and the local council. On the other: a windfarm giant, supporters of renewable energy, and, it turns out, the Scottish Government. The battle was fought and won, then fought and lost, and the question now is: what next?

The Herald reported the latest twist in the battle this week. For years, some of the residents of the village of Carsphrain in Dumfries and Galloway have been fighting plans for 17 wind turbines near their community. The local community council said there would be an enormous detrimental effect on the residents and Mountaineering Scotland also objected, saying there was a danger of the Southern Upland Way turning into the Southern Wind Farm Way.

For a while, it seemed like the campaigners were winning. Dumfries and Galloway Council objected to the plans, describing them as ill-conceived. The Scottish Government’s reporter, to whom developers can appeal, also refused to give the plan the go-ahead. It looked like the battle had been won.

Then, as one resident put it, the goalposts shifted. The Scottish Government approved the National Planning Framework 4 which requires planners to prioritise wind farms and renewable developments. It meant that the reporters were left with little choice over Shepherd’s Rig and were forced to perform a U-turn. The windfarm will go ahead. A battle thought won has now been lost.

The campaign against the plan was based on the premise that a part of Scotland that already has its fair share of wind farms would face further disruption and see a significant effect on the special scenic beauty of the Galloway Hills. This was the argument made by Mountaineering Scotland. Cairnsmore of Carsphrain, the Rhins of Kells and the upper Glenkens is a largely unspoiled part of Scotland and the mountaineers and walkers who enjoy it said the windfarm would have a substantial adverse impact.

In many ways, it’s hard to argue with that. We know we are entering a new age of renewable energy; we also know it will involve significant disruption and a visible impact on the countryside, not least from the pylons needed to support the system. The National Grid estimates that five times more transmission lines will need to be built by 2030 than have been built in the past 30 years, and plans are already in place for a 100-mile overhead line running across some of the most picturesque parts of the Highlands and Aberdeenshire. Offshore wind is also expanding, with the world’s deepest offshore wind turbine being installed off the coast of Angus this year as part of Scotland’s biggest offshore windfarm.

For those who live near such developments, or for those who see treasured views suddenly transformed, change on such a scale can be disruptive and upsetting. However, the concerns and trends that have led us to this point are undeniable: the climate crisis, the need to move away from fossil fuels, the urgent requirement to grow renewable energy, and the harsh lessons of the war in Ukraine which demonstrate the risks of relying on gas imports. There can, in the end, be only one direction of travel.

However, an acceptance of the presumption in favour of renewables should not mean that communities such as Carsphrain are left feeling powerless or voiceless. The campaigners in the village point out that their part of Scotland has far more wind turbine sites than many other parts of the country. The Scottish Government can, and must, press ahead with its escalation of renewable development but it can also do more to ensure that development is evenly distributed across the country and not condensed in one place.

The risk of pressing ahead anyway without listening to the concerns of communities such as Carsphrain is that the presumption in favour of renewables will leave communities feeling powerless and angry. The campaigners of Carsphrain believed they had won their fight but it will now be hard for anyone who has concerns about particular developments or the effect on the landscape to avoid the conclusion that even if the reporter sides with them, the Government is likely to over-rule the decision. Holyrood can seem like a long way away from many of the places that are most affected by windfarms – the danger of this latest development is that the distance will only grow.

Questions for Labour

The Scottish Labour party is celebrating its victory in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, but over in North Lanarkshire it has questions to answer. The Labour-run council there announced a decision to close 39 community facilities, only for the decision to be reversed a few days later.

For the people who use the services, the U-turn is good news, but not only has the affair caused deep concern and upset, it has raised the suspicion that Labour was politicking by blaming the cuts on the SNP before announcing a U-turn in the middle of a by-election. The party must now explain why it made the decisions it did. It must also reassure us all that it is not indulging in exactly the kind of game-playing that turns voters off.