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hands off our hills

RES Community Liaison Group – 09/04/2024 Minutes 1024 768 Hands Off Our Hills

RES Community Liaison Group – 09/04/2024 Minutes


RES has instituted a Community Liaison Group (CLG) with the objective of establishing a platform for deliberation and the exchange of information. The primary purpose of this group is to foster an efficient channel of communication among RES, the local community, and stakeholders. Membership in the CLG will comprise locally elected representatives, community groups, and other pertinent stakeholders.

It is imperative to underscore that Hands Off Our Hills maintains NO affiliation or alignment with any of the member groups or participants associated with the RES Community Liaison Group. This initiative is perceived by us as a farcical public relations endeavour employed by RES to modify their planning application in response to community concerns and to gather additional information regarding opposition sentiments.

Consequently, it should come as no surprise that we will persist as vocal opponents of this corporate undertaking.

Hands Off Our Hills has uploaded a copy of these minutes to our servers and the 9th April 2024 : 7:00pm – 9:00pm are now available for viewing by clicking on the image below:

Emma Harper MSP visits Blair Hill – Glenvernoch  1024 768 Hands Off Our Hills

Emma Harper MSP visits Blair Hill – Glenvernoch 
On Friday 15th March 2024 SNP MSP Emma Harper visited Blair Hill alongside two of our admins and Jack and Elaine Burton and their son Robert to discuss the concerns we all share with regards to RES current plans for the Industrial Turbine Site. They all went straight out onto the hill so everyone could get a feel for the area that would be destroyed and the sheer scale of what the turbines would be like around them.

Blair Hill, Glenvernoch and Balunton were all discussed with Emma and her team when it came to peat removal, noise, flicker and flooding. Also, how the laws of noise and turbines are no longer relevant when it comes to todays giant sized turbines given the laws were created and last looked at in 1997.

Donna with Emma Harper Discussing the concerns about Blair Hill Wind Farm
Donna Stewart from Hands Off Our Hills Explaining The Concerns Of The Proposed Blair Hill Industrial Wind Site

Our representatives explained that there should be a suspension of all Industrial Turbine Sites and developments until up-to-date policies and research is completed.

We believe this has been a very positive meeting with Emma and her team where she took on board all our concerns and went away with lots of action points and the reassurance that her inbox is always open and to please make contact if there are any concerns. Emma plans to contact RES and most probably Energiekontor for views and issues to be heard and discussed.

Kenny Campbell Hands Off Our Hills Co-ordinator had this to say after our meeting:

“Thanks to Emma Harper MSP and her team for coming to meet us today. Seeing the land that will be destroyed, and the effect on those who will somehow have to live beside 250 metre high turbines clearly had an impact. They agreed to speak with the relevant ministers, and we look forward to hearing the outcomes.”

Hands Off Our Hills would like to take the time to also thank Jack, Elaine and Robert Burton for allowing us to come and visit alongside Emma Harper MSP and our team.

RES Community Liaison Group – 27/02/2024 Minutes 1024 768 Hands Off Our Hills

RES Community Liaison Group – 27/02/2024 Minutes


RES has instituted a Community Liaison Group (CLG) with the objective of establishing a platform for deliberation and the exchange of information. The primary purpose of this group is to foster an efficient channel of communication among RES, the local community, and stakeholders. Membership in the CLG will comprise locally elected representatives, community groups, and other pertinent stakeholders.

It is imperative to underscore that Hands Off Our Hills maintains NO affiliation or alignment with any of the member groups or participants associated with the RES Community Liaison Group. This initiative is perceived by us as a farcical public relations endeavour employed by RES to modify their planning application in response to community concerns and to gather additional information regarding opposition sentiments.

Consequently, it should come as no surprise that we will persist as vocal opponents of this corporate undertaking.

Hands Off Our Hills has uploaded a copy of these minutes to our servers and the 27th Feb 2024 : 7:00pm – 9:10pm are now available for viewing by clicking on the image below:

Glentrool Public Engagement Event 1024 768 Hands Off Our Hills

Glentrool Public Engagement Event

Glentrool Public Engagement Event – Glentrool Hive.

Hands Off Our Hills held our first Public Engagement Event on a bright and sunny afternoon on Thursday 7th March 2024 at the Glentrool Hive.

This event was very well attended by members of the public who came out all afternoon to view our notice boards filled with information with regards to how the turbines are made and how it would affect the local area.  The Public were invited to also view a video montage of various viewpoints before and after the turbines were erected.  

The consensus was general outrage there was such a planning application in the pipeline.  Lots of our questionnaires were filled out with peoples overall opinions, which we will view and create our objections from. 

Our Co-ordinator Kenny Campbell said:

‘I’d like to thank everyone who turned out to the community information event at The Hive in Glentrool yesterday/today. We’re loving having the conversations about why the three proposals are wrong. What we’re also learning and excited about is that folk are informing themselves.  Rest assured Hands Off Our Hills will be here to challenge these money grabbing power companies and their never-ending line of applications for these monstrosities for as long as necessary.’ 

Our next Public Engagement Event will be at Whithorn in the SMCC on the 21 March between 3pm and 7pm.  If you are around the area, please come along for a cuppa and say hello and voice your opinions to us. 

RES Community Liaison Group Meeting – Minutes 1024 768 Hands Off Our Hills

RES Community Liaison Group Meeting – Minutes


RES has instituted a Community Liaison Group (CLG) with the objective of establishing a platform for deliberation and the exchange of information. The primary purpose of this group is to foster an efficient channel of communication among RES, the local community, and stakeholders. Membership in the CLG will comprise locally elected representatives, community groups, and other pertinent stakeholders.

It is imperative to underscore that Hands Off Our Hills maintains NO affiliation or alignment with any of the member groups or participants associated with the RES Community Liaison Group. This initiative is perceived by us as a farcical public relations endeavour employed by RES to modify their planning application in response to community concerns and to gather additional information regarding opposition sentiments.

Consequently, it should come as no surprise that we will persist as vocal opponents of this corporate undertaking.

Hands Off Our Hills has uploaded a copy of these minutes to our servers and the 17th Jan 2024 : 7:00pm – 8:40pm are now available for viewing by clicking on the image below:

Welcome To Hands Off Our Hills 1024 510 Hands Off Our Hills

Welcome To Hands Off Our Hills
Hello, welcome to the Hands Off Our Hills website, and finding your way to the Blog section. Here you will find articles of a more personal or in-depth nature than covered elsewhere and get a deeper understanding of the work of HOOH.

I’ll keep this initial spiel brief though, principally because we’ve got so much to do. We established this group because we’re so concerned about the truly unprecedented nature of the proposed developments in our hills. Nowhere else in Scotland under threat from industrial wind turbines has the combination of natural environments, archaeology and close proximity of people as our communities do, for these plans to proceed is unacceptable.

Protection of our area is a non-negotiable task for anyone who cares, and there are so many ways to get involved.

Please just ask, we’ll soon find you a job!

A couple of weeks ago I walked with friends onto the proposed site at what most sensible people and the Ordnance Survey know as Glenmalloch. Not RES of course, in their infinite wisdom and proprietorial manner it is called “Blair Hill”. Except it’s not, and I’ll tell you why I think that matters.

Welcome Post - Glenmalloch - Galloway Hills
Glenmalloch – Galloway Hills

Glenmalloch, Glenshalloch and Drannadow are ancient and sacred tracts of our land, they’ve been occupied for thousands of years, and relatively continuously until the late 1600s and early 1700s. In those times the land was parcelled up and bought and sold by the rogues and scoundrels who were the architects of the enclosure systems and the Lowland Clearances. Prior to that it was an inhabited place, and the landscape of those areas today remains testimony to ancient peoples with their burial cairns, stone circles, settlements and corn kilns.

Welcome Post - Glenmalloch - Galloway Hills
Glenmalloch – Galloway Hills

What we have today is another sketchy alliance between landowners choosing to make a profit from a landscape that belongs to all, and a global industrial company whose only interest lies in profit. All our roots, our connections to the ancient peoples of the land, their culture and history lie there. To facilitate their aims RES have renamed the land “Blair Hill.” For absolute clarity, that place doesn’t exist in that area, or anywhere close. We only have to recall the shady relatively recent history of colonialisation and how conquering powers renamed an area using their language to help gain control and assume ownership. To my mind RES are providing a textbook demonstration of how that process continues to this day.

Welcome Post - Glenmalloch - Galloway Hills
Glenmalloch – Galloway Hills

It’s not to big an assertion that our role and for future generations sake is to know our landscape, it’s history and to ensure the history and the knowledge of those more sustainable ways of living are remembered, honoured and passed. And remember people still live on those hills today, not the numbers of old but Glenmalloch and Drannadow are their homes.

If you want to control and abuse a person you deny their history and remove and control their identity. We’re observing RES at the early stage of the process of attempting to do this to our land.

Kindest Regards,
Kenny Campbell
Hands Off Our Hills Coordinator

Hands Off Our Hills - Dark Logo
Cree Valley Community Council accused of conflict 900 515 Hands Off Our Hills

Cree Valley Community Council accused of conflict

A Galloway community council is at the centre of conflict of interest claims over its stance regarding two wind turbine developments proposed within its area.

Cree Valley has placed on record its strong criticisms over plans for 40 turbines up to 820 feet high on moorland sites north of Minnigaff and Glenvernoch, at nearby Bargrennan.

In its submission to the Scottish Government’s energy consents unit, members cited “deep concerns” over tourism impacts of huge wind farms bordering Galloway Forest Park and unspoiled wild land.

Possible adverse impacts on Newton Stewart as the Gateway to the Galloway Hills, the Galloway and South Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere and the Galloway Dark Sky Park were also raised.

However, according to 1,600–member campaign group Hands Off Our Hills (HOOH), CVCC office bearers also head the Cree Valley Area Development Trust – a private company which accepted a £2,000 donation from Blair Hill developers RES.

In addition, HOOH states that CVCC agreed to sign up to RES’ proposed “community liaison group” at its January 8 meeting – a move it claims undermines CVCC’s publicly stated position.

Coordinator Kenny Campbell has now lodged a complaint with Dumfries and Galloway Council alleging that CVCC “has failed in a number of respects to adhere to the standards demanded under the scheme for the establishment of community councils”.

Mr Campbell states: “The chair, secretary and treasurer of CVCC are all directors of Cree Valley Area Development Trust (CVADT).

“CVADT have accepted money from RES.

“We believe this is a clear conflict of interest and believe these conflicting interests have not been disclosed to the relevant authority (council ward officers) and widely shared within the community.

“This conflict has been recently demonstrated by CVCC firmly objecting to proposals for industrial wind turbines for sites just outside Newton Stewart, while CVADT accepted £2,000 from RES, one of the wind industry development companies.

“This, despite CVCC having been repeatedly warned how this would appear to the company and wider community.”

Mr Campbell adds: “This behaviour has called into question the integrity of the whole community council and embroiled them in a conflict which was not of their making. On January 8 it was also decided without a vote that CVCC would engage with RES in their community liaison group.

“The community council is fully aware that there is very strong opposition to any form of engagement with these companies. Yet they have chosen to ignore this and the treasurer will be in attendance, the same treasurer who is a CVADT director.”

In response, Cree Valley Community Council convenor Clifford Smithers said: “CVCC feel the need to make it clear that we have not objected to any of the local windfarm proposals.

“We raised a number of queries with the developers in response to their scoping report.

“Our attending the RES community liaison group is entirely consistent with our stated position Due to the importance of the complaint we are unable to supply you with any information until the complaint procedure is complete.”

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Hands Off Our Hills Brave The Cold To Hold A demonstration 1024 768 Hands Off Our Hills

Hands Off Our Hills Brave The Cold To Hold A demonstration
About 40 people with placards and banners pitched up outside the MacMillan Hall, where developers RES were holding their first community liaison group for the Blair Hill Wind farm scheme. – (c)2024 Fiona Reid – DNGONLINE.co.uk

ANTI windfarm campaigners braved the cold to hold a demonstration in Newton Stewart on Wednesday (17 January 2024) evening. About 40 people with placards and banners pitched up outside the MacMillan Hall, where developers RES were holding their first community liaison group for the Blair Hill Wind Farm scheme.

Demonstration - No New Turbines
No new turbines stencil was made by Andrew Hockenhull

The passionate opponents had even composed a special anti turbine song for the occasion, which was periodically sung with gusto.

Organiser Kenny Campbell, of the Hands Off Our Hills group, described it as “an effective protest”.

He said yesterday:

“An enormous heartfelt thanks to all those hardy souls who turned out in seriously freezing conditions to demonstrate outside the RES so-called ‘Community Liaison Group’“.

Mr Campbell had declined an invitation to be part of the liaison group, which he has described as a “charade” and “a process completely weighted in favour of the company, landowners and other ‘interested parties’“.

Demonstration Andrew Hockenhull holding his stencil no new turbines
Campaigner: Andrew Hockenhull holding his stencil ‘no new turbines’

He added: “The demonstration was respectful but clear regarding our message, no doors were blocked but we let people know we won’t allow this devastation to happen.”

Launching the community liaison RES Group, said “it was intended to provide a forum for discussion and exchange of information, as well as to create an effective channel of communication between RES, the local community and stakeholders”.

HOOH Campaigners holding their placards in demonstration about Blair Hill Wind Farm RES Community Liasion Group Meeting
HOOH Campaigners holding their placards

The agenda for this week’s inaugural meeting included a project update and question and answer sessions.

The Blair Hill scheme is proposing 22 turbines at a site six kilometres north of Newton Stewart.

Hands Off Our Hills - Demonstration - Blair Hill Wind Farm - RES Community Liasion Group Meeting
Community liaison group RES – 17th Jan 2024 1024 768 Hands Off Our Hills

Community liaison group RES – 17th Jan 2024

Community liaison GROUP MEETING Tomorrow – Wednesday 17th January 2024

We know how you all love a get together, particularly when it involves letting those lovely folk from RES know what you think and feel about their awful proposal for our hills.

They may have been upset about our refusal to join their “community liaison group” (CLG) and that might be the reason it slipped their mind to let the COMMUNITY know the first CLG is tomorrow. It’s fine, we forgive them for this tiny oversight.

However, though it will be dark and cold if you’d like to come along to the Macmillan Hall, tomorrow (Wednesday 17 January 2024) from 5.30pm ish there will be an opportunity to show the company, elected members and other voluntary CLG members your total rejection of these plans. Very short notice but we only found out about this a couple of hours ago.

The demonstration will be respectful but clear regarding our message, no doors will be blocked but we’ll let people know we won’t allow this devastation to happen.

Bring a flask, yer bonnet and yer voice.

Hands Off Our Hills - Dark Logo
Blair Hill Wind Farm – Proposal At Wigtown County 810 539 Hands Off Our Hills

Blair Hill Wind Farm – Proposal At Wigtown County
BLAIR HILL WIND FARM – A large number of local people arrived  at the Wigtown County Buildings to view the proposals for aN Industrial Turbine SITE (BLAIR HILL WIND FARM) development in the Galloway Hills.

Blair Hill a proposed developement by RES held a public engagement event on Wednesday, which came after another one at Newton Stewart on Tuesday.

RES, who are based in Hertfordshire, are looking to construct 22 turbines up to 820 feet high around Blair Hill. It is proposed for moorland and woodland north of Old Minnigaff.

In Wigtown, Hands Off Our Hills members held a vigil outside as the event began.

Wigtown man Tony Riden said: “I have worked in nature conservation for 35 years and am a member of Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Scottish Ornithology Club and the RSPB.  The moor is precious habitat and home to species like golden eagle, curlew, marsh harrier, golden plover and redshank.  There has also been black grouse recorded on Barclye Moor.”

In the hall, construction worker David Cannon, also from Wigtown, was undecided.

He said: “I’m on the fence about the whole thing. I see it from a construction point of view and the work it would bring to the firm I would work for and other firms round about.

“But I know the turbines are very much in your face and I can understand the arguments why they are unacceptable.”

Pam Hughes from Newton Stewart was firmly against.

She said: “I’m stone mad. What about all the peat beds getting dug out for the turbine foundations? The water that the peat would otherwise soak up running into the rivers?”

Blair Hill - Campaigners hold their placards against the proposed site.
Campaigners: Angela and Sheron Not Only Fighting The Turbines But Also The Weather

Arthur Scott, also from Wigtown, wanted people to ask a question.

“Who benefits from this?“

Morag Donnan, from Sorbie, said: “I’m angry. They state there’s a nature crisis and trying to preserve all these rare species in their natural habitats.

“Yet these huge great machines are going to be brought in. All this concrete they are going to pour is going to affect all the water courses.”

Heather Bourne, from Polbae near the Knowe, lives close to Kilgallioch Wind Farm.

 “The turbines sound like a jet engine with a whoosh. I wake up suddenly at night and I don’t know why. I’m horrified at this.”

The Galloway News did find one woman who was very much in favour but she did not wish to be quoted.

An RES spokesperson said afterwards: “We’re still in the early stages of designing the proposed Blair Hill Wind Farm and the feedback received will be used to help refine the proposals.

“We would like to thank everyone for attending and for showing an interest in the project. RES has lots of experience of using the local supply chain in Dumfries and Galloway to construct wind farms and if consented, we expect the project would invest in excess of £6 million in the local economy. During the operational life of the windfarm it would also pay around £1.5 million in business rates, every year, supporting vital local services.”

He went on to say “We look forward to working with the community as we progress the proposals, to discuss the design as it evolves and to understand how the community would like to benefit from the proposed community benefits package, which could include our Local Electricity Discount Scheme (LEDS).”

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