SSEN have had what they term, Public Consultations regarding a huge 400kV industrial steel power line that will run from North to South. It's to transport their and other energy companies’ products (electricity) from where it is generated, in and around the Highlands and Islands and off our shores, through Scotland towards waiting markets that will pay them for it. You might say we are being used as a thoroughfare. SSEN’s project page can be found here.
SSEN needed to be able to tell OFGEM that, through consultations, speaking with and listening to us, they have been able to plan a way to get electricity past us to where it was needed. A plan that was sensitive to the concerns of local people, didn’t have much of a negative impact on our local environment or our communities, and didn’t cost too much. They wanted to be able to say that we/communities, helped them plan a route that we felt was acceptable and that in the main, we were happy with.
Unfortunately, although they claim to have listened to our views, they are now planning to destroy them with pylons bigger than most of us have ever seen (57m - 60m). Our neighbours on both sides of Brora and beyond are also affected. How does this respect the environment? How does it respect us, our heritage our World-famous landscapes, our nature, our community? How does it respect those whose livelihoods and businesses have been built around what this special place gives to visitors? It is incomprehensible that this is being planned and, if it transpires it's for commercial gain, it is even worse. For those that love this place it feels feel nothing short of criminal.
Take a look at Carrol Rock and Loch Brora in the tabs above, what it means to us, how beautiful it is and then tell us what you think about SSEN’s plans.
A story is told that In 1600 or thereabouts a group of Sutherland men from the Earls hunting lodge were celebrating on Eilean nam Faoileag, an island facing Carrol Rock in the middle of Loch Brora.
A large group of men from Clan Mackay appeared on the shore. There was no love lost between them and Clan Mackay wanted blood. As they couldn’t reach the men on the island they went further down to the narrows of the loch and built a dam intent on flooding the men off of the island.
A message had been sent from the island for help and at the last minute before the fate of the islands inhabitants was sealed, Clan Gunn arrived in force and came down on the Mackays with might defeating them and sending others running back to Caithness
During a stay in the Highlands in 1872, Queen Victoria wrote in her Journal of a life in the highlands, about an enjoyable day had at Loch Brora and Carrol Rock.
A Painting by Queen Victoria of Carrol Rock or Carrol Hill as she called it in her journal.
Victoria's early love of painting endured throughout her life. The Royal Collection includes over 50 sketchbooks and albums filled with her work. She enjoyed painting in nature on her annual visits to Scotland.
People who live in the Highlands, our local communities, people from all over the World come to relax at Carrol Rock for their wellbeing, their mental health, to feel joy and to escape from concrete, steel and glass. To be immersed in the unspoiled beauty of the Natural World, it’s peace and comfort. They walk dogs, they run, they cycle, they fish, they paddleboard and they swim. Some just sit and breathe, letting the stresses of the outside world ripple away. The giant pylons would not save this environment, they would destroy it, affect the livelihoods of businesses and create feelings of stress, anger and pain rather than relaxation.
The area all around Carrol Rock, Strath Brora and beyond, has offered up so much enjoyment and information on our ancestors and life in the past. It keeps archeologists, community volunteers, university students and school children busy year after year.
Whether it be a 6000 year old Neolithic cup marked stone, Bronze age roundhouses, Hut circles, standing stones, Cist Buriel sites or 2000 year old Brochs, you will realise in very little time that history is all around and underneath you waiting to be discovered.
Educational walks, talks and digs are a constant by local groups including Clyne Heritage Society.
Families from afar have been helped to trace the locations of their ancestral homes prior to the clearances. It has enabled them to try and stand where their ancestors would have been. To look around and perhaps try to better understand their lives before they were forcibly evicted from the land against their will, so that others could profit .
SSEN would suggest they could place giant pylons around known special sites. But that is only one part of the destruction. Pylons are not just placed in position. Industrial construction roads , heavy plant, trenches, concrete trucks, diggers, bulldozers, drilling machines, cranes and vehicles that can weigh more than 40 tons unladen, would still have to tear, crush, bury and hammer their way through and over our heritage and past. The setting of our archeological sites will be irreparably affected.
Big companies still make mistakes whatever mitigation is promised– search for LANDSLIDE VIKING WIND FARM 2024 and take a look.
The presence of the ravens at the Tower of London is traditionally believed to protect the Crown and the Tower. An old superstition says “If the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it”.
Clyne Heritage Society has historical evidence that, as far back as the 1800’s Ravens for the Tower of London were captured alive from Carrol Rock and dispatched to the Tower of London.
Again, in the 1950s, a local Brora man, Willie Gunn, was asked to supply some birds from the Loch Brora area. He took the ravens from Carrol Rock and Duchary. The birds were given names: Brora, Gunn and Dunrobin and their names can be seen on a plaque at the Tower.
During World War 2, when only one raven was able to survive the London bombings, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, also ordered more ravens to be brought in to revive the stock.
Right up until 1960 ravens were supplied to the Tower. The last two being named Brora 1 and Brora 2.
In March 2018, Western Power Distribution had to investigate 4 swans killed, when they flew into power lines erected close to their feeding grounds in Baston Fen Lincolnshire. In February 2023, The National Grid had to investigate the deaths of 5 swans killed when they flew into newly erected power lines at Hinkley point C near to wetlands.
Most believe this isn’t possible, it has and does happen. The British Ecological Society agrees. In a research paper in its Journal of Applied Ecology it confirms power lines can cause bird mortality due to collision or electrocution.
Every year we have hundreds of Greylag geese visiting us. Every morning they fly down Strath Brora and over the Loch in vast flocks. Sometimes in huge squadron formations, other times they mass together and move as one, like a slow-moving imperial destroyer. Sometimes they are high up, often they fly at the same approximate height of SSEN's proposed giant power lines. They often seem to be arguing with each other in flight and they regularly about turn en masse, as if one of them has forgotten something or another feels they could lead better. It's chaotic when this happens, and if one were to hit a line and panic, or they tried a U turn at the powerlines, it’s not inconceivable that they could bunch into each other in a horrendous bang of a car crash, that could see the Loch littered with dead birds and body parts, followed by a smoky heart stopping silence. Much like all the other Wildlife and Nature that would be affected by SSEN's plans, they cannot speak for themselves.
If we care for nature and wildlife we have to speak for them.
