April, The Month of Fools




It's April, and Beauly Community Council has just got around to publishing its February meeting minutes. Normally this wouldn't matter but in amongst the important stuff about spring clean-ups in the village it is difficult to avoid the concern that another clean-up of sorts is going on. Are we being taken for fools?

Time is of essence in responding to planning matters but it is only now that we hear from the minutes that remarkably the community council decided to make no response to the battery storage (BESS) application lodged on behalf of Field Beauly to the Highland Council. While technically this application sits just outside the boundaries of the community council, it has the potential to have a considerable effect on residents. Hardly a week goes by without a lithium battery explosion somewhere in the country. Such an event at Field Beauly could be catastrophic with the potential to pour large quantities of chemical run-off into the River Beauly, threatening the endangered species of Atlantic salmon and the river's delicate ecosystem. 

And that's before you even get started on the industrial visual impact on some beautiful fields and good agricultural land on the banks of the River Beauly and the additional noise and traffic on top of what is threatened by the proposed development of Fanellan substation nearby (see previous blog). 

Then there's Ballach. The community council's only concern regarding the currently scoping nearby Ballach wind turbines is how much money they can extract from the developer. Again the turbines fall within another community council's boundaries. But the fact that Beauly thinks it can milk the developers for some cash suggests they expect a local impact as well. And indeed there will be,  if developers EnergieKontor get permission to erect thirty-six Canada Square towers 230 metres high within six kilometres of the village.

You might have thought all that was worth a passing remark of concern from one of the key local community councils affected by these proposals?

In the chair at the February meeting once again, we now know, was Jane Cumming, owner of a  PR business JMC Communications  (www.jmccomms.co.uk) which has 'particular expertise in aquaculture, renewable energy and infrastructure projects' and has 'managed many community consultations to support a wide and diverse range of developments'. No list of current or recent clients is given. And yet again, the Beauly minutes contain no declaration of JMC's recent and present clients and thus Ms Cumming's interests.

The Highland Council's code of conduct for community councillors states: 

'The key principles of the Code, especially those that specify integrity, honesty and openness, are given further practical effect by the requirement for you to declare interests at meetings which you attend. The rules on declaration of interest are intended to produce transparency in regard to interests which might influence, or be thought to influence, your actions as a community councillor.

"Interests" includes your financial interests, your non-financial interests and the interests, financial and non financial of other persons who are related to you or connected to you by means of close friendship, an employer/employee relationship or similar...In the event that you have an "interest" as defined above in any matter, which could give rise to any person reasonably believing that you have a conflict of interest in that matter, you should declare that interest at the earliest stage possible. Where the interest is financial, you should withdraw from the meeting until discussion of the matter has concluded.'


As regards planning matters it states:


'If you have an interest, whether financial, non-financial, or personal, in the outcome of a decision on a planning application to be considered at a Community Council meeting, you must declare that interest and refrain from taking part in making the decision.'

It may well be the case that Field Beauly or associated companies, EnergieKontor, SSEN and others are not clients of JMC. But given the coincidence between JMC's field of speciality with the current development threats to Beauly, should we not be reassured of that fact by a partner in JMC who happens to also chair the meetings of a statutory consultee in planning matters relating to these developments, as the community council remains? Let's hope this fog lifts before April turns to May. 

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