Plans for power station at Garva Bridge are horrendous

I'M horrified at plans by Scottish Southern Energy to build a 400/132kV electricity transmission substation near the historic Garva Bridge on the south side of the Corrieyairack Pass.

The latest plan from the power company, made public just a couple of days before Christmas, will completely transform an area of land that is loved by many, an area that lies only metres from the boundary of the Cairngorms National Park.

The application is for a 10-hectare site at the end of a 10-mile line of pylons that runs across the Corrieyairack Pass itself as part of the controversial Beauly-Denny power line.

Local councillor Gregor Rimmell has described the proposal as "staggering" and went on to say:

"The problems arise from permission being given for a wind farm with no mention or consideration of how it is connected to the grid. Then comes 10 miles of pylons, then comes an enormous structure to blot popular walking and access routes."

Blinkered supporters of renewable energy often seem to forget that new power sources will need new methods of carrying all that new power, so we are likely to see not only wind farms and bulldozed roads in otherwise wild areas of Scotland but more lines of electricity pylons too.

The power companies currently claim that the cost of burying the cables underground, out of sight, would be too prohibitive, but appear to have enough spare cash to tempt local communities into supporting their plans with enormous amounts of money.

Historical accounts generally paint the Corrieyairack in shades of grimness. Montrose’s Covenanting army avoided it; Bonnie Prince Charles’s troops didn’t like it; Mrs Grant of Laggan, in her 1781 ‘Letters from the Mountains’ said it was “impassable in winter”; the Governor of Fort Augustus, in 1798, suggested it was “wild desolation beyond anything he could describe,” and a short time later the Hon Mrs Sarah Murray claimed the whole road was “rough, dangerous and dreadful, even for a horse.”

Historically the old road may have proved unpopular but hillgoers generally love it. It's on the route of my own Scottish National Trail and many TGO Challengers use it to access upper Badenoch from the Great Glen.

The old Wade built bridge and nearby barracks are of great historical importance and to further deface the area with an industrial proposal like this would be nothing less than barbaric.