Letters / ‘Just Transition’ a contradiction in terms
Trendy new term heading up the hugely lucrative renewable energy Klondike, reveals it’s anything but “just”. So, let’s dig in and see why.
Before a housing scheme, sewage plant, road, quarry or wind farm etc can go ahead, it needs planning consent with Scotland gaining its own planning system as a result of theTown and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997.
Ever since its arrival on the Scottish statute books, the Scottish planning system has vigorously maintained its “rigged in favour of the developer” status despite several attempts to reform it through yet again rigged and useless planning review consultations.
The system locks out anyone other than the developer, the Scottish Government, the relevant local authority & statutory bodies such as SEPA, water companies, wildlife organisations etc.
Local residents (the local community) who are always the most affected by any development face total exclusion to the decision-making process.
The required consultation process that accompanies the developer’s application, has no meaningful outcomes, no requirements or compulsion to respond to concerns or anything, in reality it is just a developer tick box exercise.
The local community is discriminated against on things that are forced on their locality, they have no equality or inclusion and no rights of appeal against any decision that they feel is inappropriate or unacceptable.
The developer does have this right of appeal if the planning decision goes against them, and this alone proves its rigged.
Everyone here knows about Viking Energy so let’s cut to the chase.
As the developer-rigged Scottish planning system, masterminded & manipulated by the SNP Scottish Government, granted the Viking Energy consent, here is where the real problem starts.
The Viking Energy development and all the similar developments all around Scotland, are a prime example of the UK’s democratic and political abuse inflicted on folk, and that are now being steamrolled out for profits and subsidies with no evidence of any real environmental best practice.
Add to this the racketeering or utterly ‘unjust’ practices around how the financial structure of renewable energy developments are apportioned or who pays for the infrastructure that is penalising growing numbers of low paid, elderly and poor folk, whilst pouring £ billions into the energy companies’ coffers.
All those affected know the outcome but now it is also becoming apparent to some local & national politicians, senior SIC members and their officials, who are rather too late on the scene now to start ‘pleapsin’ about how unfair wind farm developers are for causing rising fuel poverty, or how unfair it is that the affected communities are barred from discussions and excluded from any of the decisions made about their lives.
To add insult to injury, we are now hearing some island MPs, MSPs, our own senior SIC members suggesting a local energy tariff whilst expressing the need for more community ownership in local developments.
I could go on, but all this was predicted 30+ years ago.
It’s very clear to many that all of this is lumped into ‘Just Transition’, a term that is an utter contradiction in terms, given the Oxford Dictionary definition of ‘just’ being: “based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair, a just and democratic society”.
Let’s have no more of this ‘Just Transition’ and call it what it really is: a developer-rigged Scottish planning system democracy & human rights abuse or, just call it ‘transition’ to save paper.
Vic Thomas
Catfirth
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