Court overturns Scottish government's wind farm approval

Appeal judges have overturned Scottish government approval of a wind farm in the Borders which had previously been rejected on three occasions.

Scottish Borders Council (SBC) first turned down the Wull Muir scheme, near Heriot, in 2020 and an appeal against that decision was also unsuccessful.

refused Energiekontor UK's revised plans in July 2024 but the Scottish government ruled they could go ahead in January last year.

The eight-turbine project was first rejected due to its "unacceptable significant adverse impacts on the landscape".

An appeal against that refusal failed and prompted revised plans to be brought to SBC.

A bid to move the turbines and make them bigger was also rejected but an appeal against that decision was successful.

Raeshaw Farms instructed lawyers to seek to overturn that ruling at Scotland's highest civil appeal court.

They argued that the reporter responsible for giving the go-ahead to the scheme did not follow correct legal procedures in making his decision.

The court heard how the proposal covered the construction of eight turbines and other infrastructure.

However, the scheme did not include details of the off-site grid connection required to export electricity to the grid.

Raeshaw's lawyers said that this meant the reporter's January 2025 decision did not consider the environmental effects of the grid connection.

In turn, they argued that this meant the development had not been lawfully approved.

In a written judgement issued by Lady Wise - who sat with her colleagues Lord Pentland and Lord Ericht - those arguments were upheld.

She wrote: "We consider that the reporter erred in failing to conduct the necessary fact-specific evaluation of the proposal."

Lady Wise said he should have done so before reaching a conclusion on whether the wind farm and grid connection constituted a single project for which an EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) report was required.

She added: "We reject the submission made at the hearing before us by senior counsel for the respondents that any error by the reporter on this point was not a material one.

"This was a material error."

The judge quashed the decision of January last year and remitted the appeal to "a different reporter for a fresh decision".