A call has been made for a moratorium on new renewable energy developments across parts of the Highlands, with concerns raised about the pace and scale of change affecting rural communities.
The proposal focuses on Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, where communities are seeing increasing numbers of windfarms, battery storage sites and associated infrastructure projects.
The argument centres on the need for stronger planning, clearer national direction and greater local involvement in decision making.
Laùra Hänsler said:
“There is a growing and undeniable concern across Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, about the unchecked expansion of windfarms, battery storage facilities, pylons, and associated infrastructure.
“Communities are watching their landscapes change at pace, often with little sense of control, consultation, or tangible benefit.
“We support renewable energy, we understand its role in Scotland’s future, but what is happening now is not a fair or balanced transition, it is a free for all.
“Developments are being approved and pushed forward without a coherent national framework that protects communities, landscapes, and local interests.
“Instead, we are seeing a pattern where multinational companies extract profit while the people who live here are left with the consequences.
“The visual impact, the environmental strain, and the pressure on infrastructure are borne locally, while the financial return largely leaves the area.
“This is not community led energy.
“It is industrial scale development imposed on rural Scotland.
“Until there is a clear, enforceable plan from government that ensures proper regulation, meaningful community benefit, and strategic oversight of where and how windfarms, battery storage facilities, pylons, and wider energy infrastructure are developed, we cannot support the current trajectory.
“That is why I back a moratorium on any further developments of this kind across Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch. And further across the Highlands & Islands.
“This pause is not about stopping progress, it is about demanding that progress is done properly.
“We need a framework that puts communities first.
“One that guarantees real local benefit, protects our landscapes, and ensures that decisions are made with people, not done to them.”
“Until that is in place, enough is enough, let our communities decide.”
The call comes amid wider debate about how Scotland delivers its transition to renewable energy while balancing environmental, economic and community impacts.
Speaking ahead of a climate event in Badenoch, Hänsler said she supports renewable energy but believes the current approach is not delivering a fair transition.
She said the issue is not whether Scotland should develop renewable energy, but how that development is planned, delivered and shared.
The proposal argues that without a clear framework, communities risk carrying the impact of development without seeing meaningful long term benefit.
