Kenny MacAskill walked into the Columba Hotel in Inverness this morning with a message he believes the Highlands can no longer afford to ignore.
He took the floor with quiet authority and launched Onshore No More, a paper arguing that Scotland’s era of large scale onshore wind development must come to an end.
He opened with a simple line.
“Scotland is energy rich.”
He reminded the room that Scotland already produces more renewable electricity than it uses and that the Highlands generate more than one hundred per cent of their domestic needs.
He said the rise of offshore wind has changed the landscape again with developments in the Moray Firth now capable of powering millions of homes and reshaping how Scotland can use its natural resources.
One project alone, the proposed Berwick Bank scheme at the mouth of the River Forth, is claimed by its developers to produce enough electricity for six million homes, a figure that exceeds the number of households in Scotland.
MacAskill argued that the sheer scale of offshore production makes further mass onshore expansion unnecessary and harmful.
“We are blessed with extraordinary renewable potential,” he said.
“But our landscape is not simply there to be covered in turbines so corporate fat cats can take the profit and send it south.”
He turned to what he called Scotland’s “great absurdity,” the growing bill for constraint payments when wind farms are ordered to switch off because the grid cannot take the power.
Last year those payments reached one point seven billion pounds, with around one point two billion pounds going to Scottish onshore sites, a situation he described as “perverse” and “a complete failure of planning and leadership.”
He warned that the Highlands in particular face speculative development driven by equity funds and land deals rather than local need or community benefit.
He said the region already hosts hundreds of planning applications and that many communities feel overwhelmed by proposals that offer little long term employment and no meaningful cut to energy bills.
During questions he was pressed on where Scotland’s power actually goes.
Much of Scotland’s power is already pulled south through subsea cables and the Highlands now face new pylon routes that would carve across the landscape to feed the north of England.
“These cables are being built to power Manchester and Liverpool,” he said.
“They are not being built to warm Highland homes.”
He was asked about the recent push for micro nuclear reactors and the wider debate over nuclear power.
“There is no requirement for nuclear in Scotland,” he said firmly.
He argued that nuclear brings high costs, limited jobs and long term risks at a time when Scotland already produces more than enough energy for itself.
Hydrogen, micro grids, local heating schemes and large scale offshore wind were described as the technologies that can genuinely benefit Highland communities.
The conversation then turned to Sizewell B and C, the vast English nuclear projects now delayed and billions over budget.
“Scotland is contributing to Sizewell,” he said.
“But we will never see a single penny of benefit from it.”
He argued that if that level of investment had been directed to Scottish offshore engineering, tidal energy or hydro schemes, Scotland would be “a world leader rather than a donor to somebody else’s project.”
MacAskill closed with a blunt warning that the Highlands must not become a sacrifice zone.
“We produce more than enough energy,” he said.
“We do not need to destroy our landscape to make rich companies richer, and the time has come to say onshore no more.”
