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This Saturday * All welcome
Area-wide Community Council Convention on:
THE IMPACT ON COMMUNITIES OF MAJOR ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE HIGHLAND COUNCIL AREA
Saturday 14 June 2025 @ 2-4 pm
Venue: Phipps Hall, Station Road, Beauly IV4 7BT or Online by Zoom.
Please confirm your attendance in advance to Mr Cameron Kemp, Chair of Kirkhill & Bunchrew Community Council on kandbcommunitycouncil@gmail.com, indicating whether you can attend in person or on Zoom.
Open to: Community Councils and related organisations; and the general public as individuals / residents / members of the affected communities.
To join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/
Meeting ID: 819 5119 4366 > Passcode: 858945 Zoom attendance will launch ahead of 2pm, and finish after 4pm, to ensure IT is operational / supported throughout.
All welcome.
Should you wish to learn more – or are interested in attending – please read the following below.
BACKGROUND CONTEXT / INFORMATION
Last September 64 Community Councils across Highland got behind the successful Motion on Energy Infrastructure and Community Engagement. The online mapping was made available at the end of April this year and we still await the implementation of the other actions in the motion.
The speed of renewable energy infrastructure developments is gathering pace and you may have seen publicity around the Convention of The Highlands and Islands, which took place in Strathpeffer on Monday 12 May 25.
At that Convention, a Paper entitled Regional Transformational Opportunities in The Highlands and Islands was discussed. The link to the paper is here:
regional-transformational-opportunities-in-the-highlands-and-islands-executive-summary-may-2025.pdf
Some of us know of people who are moving away from impacted areas or who are seeing a reduction in the value of their homes and businesses, not to mention health and wellbeing impacts. That needs to be recognised and addressed at the top table.
To this end, we are proposing to hold a Convention of our Community Councils who are adversely impacted by major energy infrastructure, and we think that the sooner this is done the better. We are proposing to hold the Convention on Saturday 14th June 2025, at The Phipps Hall in Beauly from 2pm to 4pm.
Highland Councillor Helen Crawford has kindly offered to chair the event and you are warmly invited to please attend.
Such a Convention would raise the profile of the impact on communities that are expected to host the infrastructure and identify the protections that need to be put in place. This needs to be done because so many are concerned that our Highland Council is not stepping up on behalf of the impacted communities who are, by their very nature, fragmented and rural. A Convention would perhaps be an alternative platform for the Community Councils to be heard and have strength in numbers.
We want to stress that this Convention would be open for anyone to attend and observe and that all political parties should also be invited to attend and hear what our Community Councils have to say. The intention is that the event will be apolitical. Participants would be Highland Council region wide so that the Community Councils can then issue a statement of requirements to the Highland Council and that this combined voice would have authority. Councillor Crawford has offered to assist in this important work on behalf of our communities.
It is hoped that we will be able to arrange for people to join the event remotely either via Teams or Zoom. Presence in person would be greatly appreciated.
