Wednesday February 18th 2026
Visualisation of the Wull Muir development
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
Scotland’s highest civil appeals court has quashed go-ahead for a controversial wind farm in the Borders.
Energiekontor, a German company, submitted a planning application via its UK subsidiary to build an eight turbine wind farm, Wull Muir, around 1.3km north-east of Heriot.
Scottish Borders Council (SBC) first turned down the Wull Muir scheme back in 2020 for its “unacceptable significant adverse impacts on the landscape”.
A subsequent appeal against refusal was also unsuccessful.
The council then rejected Energiekontor UK’s revised plans in July 2024 but the Scottish government ruled they could go ahead in January last year.
A company that operated a nearby farm, Raeshaw Farms Ltd, disagreed with the decision.
It instructed lawyers to appeal this decision to the Inner House of the Court of Session – Scotland’s highest civil appeal court.
They argued that the reporter responsible for giving the go-ahead to the scheme did not follow correct legal procedures in making his decision.
The court heard how the proposal covered the construction of eight turbines and other infrastructure.
However, the scheme did not include details of the off-site grid connection required to export electricity to the grid.
Raeshaw’s lawyers said that this meant the reporter’s January 2025 decision did not consider the environmental effects of the grid connection.
In a written judgement issued by Lady Wise – who sat with her colleagues Lord Pentland and Lord Ericht – those arguments were upheld.
She wrote: “We consider that the reporter erred in failing to conduct the necessary fact-specific evaluation of the proposal.”
Lady Wise said he should have done so before reaching a conclusion on whether the wind farm and grid connection constituted a single project for which an EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) report was required.
She added: “We reject the submission made at the hearing before us by senior counsel for the respondents that any error by the reporter on this point was not a material one.
“This was a material error.”
However, the appeal decision is not the end of the matter.
The judge quashed the decision of January last year and remitted the appeal to “a different reporter for a fresh decision”.
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