Sins of Emission
The MoD is forming contingency plans to repel Russian attacks on UK energy infrastructure. These will cover cyber defence, rogue oil tankers and no doubt major substations, 20 of which have been taken out in Ukraine. Imagine a cheeky nest of anti-missile batteries on the Fanellan braes; that would set off the development nicely, complementing the razor wire, watchtowers, security lights and alsatians defending a strategic energy hub.
Dialling back from the prospect of sudden death under a Putin ICBM, there are the more insidious health effects of Fanellan, Field Beauly's BESS and pylons to consider. The elephant in the room, disguised among hulking grey transformers, is the cumulative effect of all this on the mental and physical wellbeing of surrounding communities.
For unexplained reasons, as CB4PC has pointed out, The Highland Council has scoped out health as a competent objection although planning authorities are required to consider public health and wellbeing under National Planning Framework 4 when making decisions on energy infrastructure. The council's own Environmental Health Team is a statutory consultee, its opinions requested but as yet unrevealed.
Scanning public planning responses reveals a cluster of objections from doctors. The medics have spotted the obvious potential danger and health downside of 400 HGV trips per day belching diesel and rampaging through villages. Beauly and Kiltarlity residents' lungs are set to rival those of Myanmar, world leader in the smoking stakes. Beauly resident Christopher Boyle, a community pharmacist, has computed that the inhalation of black carbon in diesel fumes will expose Beauly residents to the air pollution equivalent of 20,000 cigarettes over five years along the one kilometre high street.
The docs can see the likelihood of construction noise, congestion and an influx of temporary workers causing stress and mental health issues is high. And some of them have an eye to what the developers hope to leave behind: a tangled horror of bulky metal and cables, buzzing with high voltage electricity which emits an extremely low frequency, non-ionising electromagnetic field.
Several recent studies suggest that the sort of electromagnetic field issuing from power lines and substations can increase childhood leukaemia. A report published in 2023 (Malagoli) found evidence among residents of the Northern Italian provinces of Modena and Reggio Emilia that close proximity to power lines brought an excess risk of childhood leukaemia. It supports a 2005 Oxford study in the British Medical Journal showing children living within 200m of high voltage power lines have a 70% increased risk of developing the disease.
A 2025 review in 'Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology' reported the same electromagnetic fields have been shown to increase leukaemia in mice. In 2015 the European Commission Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks found overall, epidemiological studies of these fields revealed an increased risk.
Some reports have found no link between power lines and leukaemia but a remarkable number of these have been sponsored by the electricity industry. Similarly, after years of industry sponsored biased reports denying any ill effects from radio frequency electromagnetic fields from smart devices, mobile telephone masts and wifi, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has finally admitted there is reliable evidence that these fields increase the risk of cancer in animal experiments and have an impact on male fertility. The WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified electro magnetic fields as a possible carcinogen as far back as 2001. Perhaps that is due for a reassessment and possible escalation too.
Not long before being disbanded in 2004, the National Radiological Protection Board, a UK government quango, subtly shifted guidance on power lines. While staunchly (and, it appears now, wrongly) maintaining that restrictions on exposure to power lines were not supported by cancer studies, it recommended that 'the exposure of children to power frequency magnetic fields is an issue requiring consideration for application of the precautionary principle'.
Just where that principle is in The Highland Council's excising of health from the planning process is hard to see. Allowing developers to plonk down a 400 kV substation and associated power lines in the midst of several villages and townships without properly considering the health issues would be the height of irresponsible behaviour by both the council and other limbs of government involved.
