Residents wishing to submit feedback on the Blackford Energy Park proposal which was presented on the 3rd of April in Rothienorman have until the 17th of April to provide feedback. Instructions below. If you have items you think impact the community as a whole, the FRMCC are happy to include them in our submission – please have them to us by the 16th of April to make sure they are included.
If you wish to make comments on the proposal, you can email your comments (with the subject ‘Rothienorman’) to info@blackfordenergypark.com or post comments to Blackford Renewables Ltd, 272 Bath Street, Glasgow, Scotland, G2 4JR by 17th April 2025.
Comments
4 responses to “Blackford Energy Park – Rothienorman Feedback”
Living in very close proximity to the proposed Blackford Energy Park I have several very real concerns.
The first is the noise generated from the air conditioning units which run constantly to cool the battery storage packs. Cumulatively – from an energy park of 500MW – I dread to think what this noise level will be. Making it very personal to me and my husband – I suffer regular life altering migraines and my husband suffers from asthma. For these reasons we have to sleep with our bedroom windows open all year round. The thought of trying to sleep with 10’s or even 100’s of air conditioning units whirring away day and night behind the house literally terrifies me. This WILL adversely affect our health and well being.
Secondly, any run off from the site – containing goodness knows what – will run into the burn and which runs through our property. Our private water supply will be affected as will our private watering point for our animals in our fields. Without fresh clean water we cannot live in our house or water our livestock.
Thirdly – the fire risk and any toxic contamination from said fire will reach our property and animals in literally seconds. We believe when these battery storage packs are burning, they cannot be extinguished with water – so what happens to us and our animals as the fire rages?
Fourthly – the cumulative impact of all the additional traffic on our quiet single track country road is a huge safety worry. We daily walk and cycle these quiet narrow roads and they are not built for heavy traffic. We have been told throughout the build of the substation and works thereafter that the road signs would prevent construction traffic coming through our hamlet of Blackford – well that doesn’t work! They ignore the signs – we have works’ traffic constantly using Blackford as a quick route out of the site.
I appreciate these battery storage packs need to be constructed to store electricity but situate them with more consideration to local residents. Situate them where they cannot be seen or heard and the safety questions over noise, Fire and Water supplies is not a concern. This park is HUGE and bang in the middle of the hamlet of Blackford – move it to the other side of the substation where there are no properties (and lives) at risk.
Hello Sue, Thank you for this comment. We’ve copied it in our files for the future and included your comments in our feedback to the developer. This forum was accidentally left open, so in future if you have comments on developments in the area, it would very helpful for you to email the community council directly – FRMCCSEC@gmail.com or join us at our meetings (next one is the 20th of May in Fyvie, and online).
I am totally against any further ‘industrialisation’ of my local area. I object wholeheartedly to any further expansion of battery storage anywhere near my village.
Hello Fiona, We took your comments in as part of our response to the developers on this project. In future, it is very helpful for the community council if you could send these via email (having comments open was an accident)- and if you give specifics it is VERY helpful.