Published in partnership with The Herald
Tucked between the Rhinns of Kells and Cairnsmore of Carsphairn, the parish of Carsphairn is the most northerly community in the Glenkens area of Dumfries & Galloway.
Covering a vast 272 km² – about a third of the Glenkens’ land – Carsphairn is home to just 7% of the population. It is a place of wide horizons, treasured landscapes and national recognition: the Galloway Hills Regional Scenic Area, the Galloway Forest Park, the Galloway Gold Tier Dark Skies Park, and the UNESCO Biosphere designation.
But alongside that beauty, Carsphairn has also become a focal point for national net-zero policy. Commercial forestry and wind farms now dominate the land, with 52% of the parish planted with Sitka spruce, and nine operational wind farms with six more in planning. All told, around 80% of Carsphairn’s land is tied up in these uses, leaving only a fifth for farming, community life, and everything else.
For many residents, the biggest impact of this transformation isn’t in the skyline or on the hills – it’s on the roads. Much of the local network is made up of narrow, single-track roads with no through-routes, originally built for light rural traffic. These are now pressed into service for convoys of turbine blades, cranes, cement mixers, and lorries carrying loads such as timber and hardcore.
Up the Lorg Glen, about 30 people live along one such single track, dead-end road, including nine children and several pensioners. Yet this one road is listed as the access route for up to five separate wind farm developments.
“Never in the wildest dreams of its original builders would this road be expected to carry 200-tonne loads,” said one resident. “If forestry companies have to build new roads in some parts of the region, why aren’t wind developers asked to do the same?”
For families, a missed school bus can mean a lost day of education. For pensioners, carers delayed by construction traffic can be a genuine safety risk. For local tourism or small businesses, a blocked road can mean cancelled bookings or lost income.
And the disruption doesn’t end once turbines are standing. Carsphairn has already seen crane accidents, blade failures, and even turbine fires – each incident bringing more traffic, more closures, and fresh risks.
One frustration voiced by locals is that almost none of this infrastructure is Scottish-owned; Windy Rig belongs to Statkraft, the Norwegian state energy company, Shepherds’ Rig is owned by Boralex of Canada, Other wind farms involve Danish and French companies, and even Scottish Power, our ‘national’ electricity company, is owned by the Spanish giant Iberdrola.
With ownership far removed, accountability often feels the same. Contractors come and go. When things go wrong, responsibility is passed down the chain – but it’s the local residents who are left dealing with broken verges, blocked access, and months of upheaval.
Carsphairn has one of Scotland’s earliest community benefit funds. Windy Standard, owned by Fred. Olsen Renewables, became the second operational wind farm in the country back in 1996. Its benefits, alongside others, are channelled through Carsphairn Renewable Energy Fund Ltd (CREFL).
CREFL currently brings in around £350,000 each year, expected to rise to more than £1 million by the mid-2030s. The fund has supported a wide variety of local initiatives, from Carsphairn Community Woodland to numerous education and training grants, pre-apprenticeships, and the new Stroanfreggan community archaeology dig.
To ensure every household sees a direct benefit, there’s also the Local Energy Discount Scheme (LEDS), which offers £600 per year to households in the parish.
As one resident said: “Apart from during construction, it’s a good place to live, thanks to wind farm money.”
Carsphairn is also part of the wider Glenkens & District Trust, which manages wind farm funds across the area and has a very effective structure utilising the Glenkens Community Action Plan to ensure funding goes to projects aligning with the community’s goals.
This has seen a number of projects transform community life in the Glenkens over the last five years, from local food delivery networks to a community website to supporting important research into key issues impacting the Glenkens such as housing, education and land use.
But while the community benefit system is strong in Carsphairn and the wider Glenkens, this does not solve the issue of daily access for residents. Funds can support projects and groups, but they don’t stop a child missing school when the road is blocked.
However, there is hope of a potential change on the horizon for communities such as Carsphairn, in the form of an exciting new development on the east coast. In East Lammermuir, another area with heavy renewable energy development, the community and other stakeholders have been working together to create an Energy Projects Partnership. It was decided that with so many projects underway, what was really needed was someone on the ground who could link communities, developers, the regional council, and transmission operators.
The result is an Energy Projects Partnership Manager – funded by Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN) and SSE Renewables, employed through Foundation Scotland, and accountable to a steering group of local representatives.
Rachel Searle from Foundation Scotland commented: “Early feedback of this pioneering work in East Lammermuir is evidencing the benefits of improved communication and community engagement. Those involved are seeing an approach here that has potential for tailoring to other areas where there is an appetite for working better together amongst different stakeholders.”
For Carsphairn, and potentially the wider Glenkens as developments increase, such a role could be vital. With so many developers working side by side, an independent local co-ordinator could help ensure that residents are heard, problems are solved quickly, and disruption is kept to a minimum.
Here, the debate isn’t about whether Scotland should pursue renewable energy, as is so often perceived when communities raise their voices. It’s about how that transition is delivered.
When rural roads designed for local traffic are turned into industrial haulage routes, it is local people who pay the price in safety, access, and quality of life. For a parish where 80% of the land is already given over to forestry and wind, the least that can be expected in return is reliable access for those who live there.
Rural depopulation is already a huge challenge in areas such as Carsphairn. If families can’t get children to school, if pensioners can’t receive care, and if businesses can’t guarantee access as and when needed, then people will have little choice but to leave.
With the Scottish Government’s National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) setting out a long-term vision for how land is developed and used, there is now a clear emphasis on tackling rural depopulation and supporting thriving local communities.
As the voices of residents begin to be heard, and new partnership models like the Energy Projects Partnership take shape, there’s hope that this marks a real shift in how developers, councils, and communities work together – towards a fairer, more balanced approach for the future and a Just Transition for all.
This article is part of The Power Shift – a collaborative investigation by 10 independent, community-based publishers across Scotland, exploring the impact of the green energy transition on communities. Co-ordinated by the Scottish Beacon and supported by the Tenacious Journalism Awards, the project aims to amplify local voices, facilitate cross-community learning and push for fair, transparent energy development.
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