Moray Council: Loss of farmland and road safety concerns over two proposed bio-energy plants
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Road safety and the loss of prime agricultural land have been raised as concerns relating to two proposed biomass plants for Moray.
Acorn Bioenergy has submitted initial plans for what are called anaerobic digestion plants to be built at Longmorn, near Elgin, and Rathven, close to Buckie.
Both are designed to convert waste feedstock into biogas, which will then be upgraded to methane and fed onto the national grid.
Councillors were asked to give feedback on both proposal of application notices at a meeting on Tuesday.
Derek Ross (Speyside/Glenlivet, Independent) told the other members of the planning committee that he had gone to two public meetings in relation to the Longmorn proposal.
He said: "They were both very well attended and had feisty debates between the developer and local people, significantly local farmers.
"The main concerns are loss of prime agricultural land, the large footprint of the development and access to the A941.
"Also residents feel they’re moving from a generally rural landscape to an industrialised one."
Issues were raised over lorries and tractors stacking up on a fast stretch of the Elgin to Rothes road, particularly at harvest time.
Cllr Ross said: "Some people from Rothes were concerned this development would mean more lorry movements through a village that is already stressed."
He added that representatives from the National Farmers Union questioned whether potale, draff and straw were not waste products but used by local farmers for their livestock.
Donald Gatt (Keith and Cullen, Conservative) said speeding was a "fairly regular occurrence" on that part of the A941 and raised issue with the development being sited on agricultural fields.
He said: "There seems to be a few applications recently that are taking up a substantial amount of farmland."
Draeyk Van Der Horn (Forres, Green) wanted clarification on what defined waste feed.
He said: "I used to be a farmer in a different life, and there’s no such thing as waste. This is all useful material."
Cllr Van Der Horn also asked for figures on how many tonnes of waste product would be needed to create 100GW of power.
Marc Macrae (Fochabers/Lhanbryde, Conservative) said one Longmorn resident had recently reported three separate traffic incidents to the emergency services.
He added that the A98 road past where the Buckie plant is proposed is like the "Indianapolis speedway".
Cllr Macrae said: "Between these two we’re looking at over 16 hectares of land being taken away.
"We do seem to be losing an incredible amount of agricultural land."
There were also calls for protection of a historic cairn near the Rathven site.
Information from councillors will be given to Acorn Bioenergy in preparation for full planning applications to be submitted by the company.
Each plant will have a generating capacity of 100GW a year.
Neither development will be connected to the grid directly.
Methane is expected to be transported to the company’s off-site hub near Inverness Airport where it will enter the network.
The Longmorn site is about the size of 25 football pitches, with the A941 road to the east and Ben Romach Distillery to the South.
At Rathven the plant is proposed for a six-hectare site (about 15 football pitches) around 300 metres south of Buckie and to the east of the junction with March Road and the A98.
