Sunny summer afternoons in the '50's used to mean picnics at Loch Brora - families from Badnellan and Ardachu. In those days, vehicles being less common, we could drive over the cropped turf to the first little sandy beach, enjoy a paddle, the picnic and the view, drive home again and leave not a trace of our passing.
The line of pylons (strung out behind West Clyne for example) were erected a bit later in that decade. I'd supposed then that they connected the new reactor at Dounreay to the Lairg power station at the foot of Loch Shin. I expect there are good reasons for not being able to use these same pylons now. I was unaware of any controversy surrounding them.
At that time we were not connected to the grid and I rather think we thought of the enterprise as being 'progress'. It's a good few years now since SSE were fined £2million for poor customer service. Now, having offloaded their domestic consumers onto OVO, they are saved further embarrassment from this quarter. It's also a long time since the root of the conglomerate comprising SSEN was a public body. It seems to me that they are now beholden to nobody.
I'm still off-grid. Having refused a wayleave to use power from my transformer to supply a speculative new build (there was a pole outside his front door), the network people must have taken some vindictive pleasure in arriving with chainsaws to cut down the several poles, including the one that supported my transformer. They seemed to think that refusal to bow to their demands merited severe punishment.
Don't forget you may now get £250 off your annual electricity demand.
