Wednesday May 6th 2026
Montage of turbines at Crystal Rig 1 Farm in the Lammermuir Hills (image taken from Fred Olsen Renewables online public exhibition)
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
A pheasant’s nest held up work at an East Lothian wind farm for three weeks as £50million of equipment was delayed to protect the eggs, it has been revealed.
The incident at Crystal Rig in the Lammermuirs was revealed at a meeting of East Lothian Council as operators Fred Olsen Renewables argued their case for an access road for new turbines.
The company wants to decommission its oldest operation at the site Crystal Rig 1 removing 25 100-metre turbines and repowering it with ten new 200 metre high ones.
However council officers objected to the plans over a lack of information about the environmental impact of transporting the new turbines which will have blades measuring 81 metres.
Crystal Rig 1 was the largest wind farm in Scotland when it began operating in 2003 and its original turbines are due to be decommissioned in 2028.
The operators have applied to the Scottish Government’s Energy Consent Unit to replace them but council officers said that while the approve of the repowering of the site in principle they cannot approve the access route without more information.
In a report to councillors officers said they had raised various concerns about the plans “most notably that the developer has not demonstrated that the public access road arrangements are either practical or achievable to accommodate the delivery of 80m blades”.
Officers also recommend objecting to the plans over the impact on the countryside with the landscape officer raising concerns and claims the company had ‘omitted’ ecological information they required from an environmental impact assessment.
Graeme Marsden , from the council, said: “What we are seeking is a swept path analysis of the impact of transporting 81 metre wide blades up that road.”
However Euan Hutchison, the firm’s development director, told the meeting it was impossible to predict the impact because technology changes all the time adding “we do not have a crystal ball”.
Instead he provided the example of the bird’s nest to show how seriously the company took its responsibilities to its surroundings saying the discovery of it on a road due to be used for transporting equipment saw workers set up round the clock monitoring and put protective barriers around it.
He said: “As a result the £50m of equipment was stored at Rosyth dockyard for three weeks waiting for the pheasants to hatch. Even with ten years of survey information we could not have predicted that and we did not need to, we just needed to know how to act when it happened.”
Councillors however were not persuaded to back the proposal without additional information, something East Lammermuir Community Council also requested.
Councillor Donna Collins, local ward member, said: “My main concern is we get assurances, assurances, assurances from all the different contractors around the Lammermuirs at the moment and when it comes to getting these conditions done things change and it all gets a bit wishy washy.”
Councillors voted unanimously to submit an objection to the Energy Consents Unit at this stage. They also agreed that the council’s Chief Planning Officer be authorised to undertake discussions with the ECU to seek to resolve these objections and that conditions be agreed and attached to the consent if required.
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