Battery Project - Chairman's Statement

[Robert]

28 minutes ago, DoofersDad said:

According to the Courier, 4 local Community Councils have issued a statement opposing the application. It strongly contradicts the club’s arguments on a number of points.  What an absolute mess this is. 

This:

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/4-community-councils-representing-13-700-residents-unite-to-344556/

[Charles Bannerman]

30 minutes ago, Satan said:

That's an argument for a city council , which is for another day.

For another day indeed - but it’s still one that needs to be had at some point.

[Satan]

21 minutes ago, Robert said:

This:

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/4-community-councils-representing-13-700-residents-unite-to-344556/

My council is one of these, don't think my 'councillor ' canvassed me on this one...

[Yngwie]

Exactly, how many people do they really represent. And what’s it got to do with 3 of those community councils, only one of them has relevance for this application. If they want to involve others then we can point out that community councils representing 60,000 local residents did NOT sign up to it!

There is only one valid point which is the one the planning committee used in its recommendation to reject, the rest of it is irrelevance and misdirection. Sorry Wilsy, I know you and your pals put a lot of effort into it but it’s pretty feeble and does not stand up to scrutiny.

[wilsywilsy]

1 hour ago, Yngwie said:

There is only one valid point which is the one the planning committee used in its recommendation to reject, the rest of it is irrelevance and misdirection. Sorry Wilsy, I know you and your pals put a lot of effort into it but it’s pretty feeble and does not stand up to scrutiny.

Deary me . That is quite a wild leap you are making here Mr Morrison. 

If you are not 100% with us, you are against us. Or something like that. 

Add Wilsy to the Councillor Oldham and Jeff Bezos ICT vendetta conspiracy. 

[Satan]

If only they got off their @rses and voted the first time eh.

[STFU]

18 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

One further point. What would it look like if Councillors from over 100 miles away were seen to turn out mob handed and overturn a decision taken by an admittedly small but perfectly legal group of their colleagues representing areas much closer to the installation in question.

Dare I suggest that turning up for a council committee meeting would look like them doing the job they were elected to do?

[+DoofersDad]

 

It was the planning department that recommended rejection on that one point Yngwie refers to, and the planning committee which decided to reject the recommendation and approve the application.  Now that the Council have decided that all councillors with planning training and no disqualifying interest should make the decision, it is open to them to reject the application on any issue they consider relevant.

For instance, the Community Councils state: " The BESS site guidelines from the National Fire Chiefs’ Council make it irrefutably clear that this steep site and planning application for an industrial chemical energy storage site has multiple unresolvable safety issues."  That is strong stuff.  But the club's statement states: "Fire risk etc is not a material planning consideration." and "The Head of Protection and Preparedness for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service confirmed they had no issues with this application."  

These positions are polar opposites.  If I were a Councillor charged with being part of the decision making group, I would want clarification here.  One assumes the Council has received formal professional advice and that this provides detailed reasons why the potential risks identified in the NFCC's guidelines are not such as to warrant rejection of this application.

If I was a Community Councillor I would also wish to see the local advice and a site risk assessment before signing up to such an uncompromising statement saying that the site has "multiple unresolvable safety issues".

I don't know what professional advice has been given.  What I do know is that there are people on one side or the argument or other and maybe, both,  who are making strong statements either with no evidence to back them up, or knowingly contradictory to the evidence.  I suspect we will hear a good bit more about this before the Council make their final decision.

[STFU]

50 minutes ago, wilsywilsy said:

Deary me . That is quite a wild leap you are making here Mr Morrison. 

If you are not 100% with us, you are against us. Or something like that. 

Add Wilsy to the Councillor Oldham and Jeff Bezos ICT vendetta conspiracy. 

It's only a matter of time before they start thinking you're caleyd.

[dougal]

The article in the courier gives an eye watering account what certain communities in Inverness think of ICT. 

I wouldn’t be surprised there will be more councillors that will voice their opinion now against the clubs proposal directly as a result of this pointless meeting that the so called guardians thought was a good idea. 

ICT have made firm enemies from the birth  whether that being the business world the local authorities or the run of the mill day to day punters. 
This latest debacle adds to the number of growing dissenters will they ever learn from previous mistakes? I.e the concert fiasco. 
The answer is NO.

Pains me to say this but we are definitely  not a community club unlike our neighbours further north. 

The meeting has backfired badly. 

Dougal 
 

 

 

 

 

 

[STFU]

3 minutes ago, DoofersDad said:

 

It was the planning department that recommended rejection on that one point Yngwie refers to, and the planning committee which decided to reject the recommendation and approve the application.  Now that the Council have decided that all councillors with planning training and no disqualifying interest should make the decision, it is open to them to reject the application on any issue they consider relevant.

For instance, the Community Councils state: " The BESS site guidelines from the National Fire Chiefs’ Council make it irrefutably clear that this steep site and planning application for an industrial chemical energy storage site has multiple unresolvable safety issues."  That is strong stuff.  But the club's statement states: "Fire risk etc is not a material planning consideration." and "The Head of Protection and Preparedness for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service confirmed they had no issues with this application."  

These positions are polar opposites.  If I were a Councillor charged with being part of the decision making group, I would want clarification here.  One assumes the Council has received formal professional advice and that this provides detailed reasons why the potential risks identified in the NFCC's guidelines are not such as to warrant rejection of this application.

If I was a Community Councillor I would also wish to see the local advice and a site risk assessment before signing up to such an uncompromising statement saying that the site has "multiple unresolvable safety issues".

I don't know what professional advice has been given.  What I do know is that there are people on one side or the argument or other and maybe, both,  who are making strong statements either with no evidence to back them up, or knowingly contradictory to the evidence.  I suspect we will hear a good bit more about this before the Council make their final decision.

At the last planning meeting (you can watch it online) the planners expressed concern at the lack of guidance/legislation in regards to fire and safety aspects of battery storage facilities.  They recommended that a condition be placed on the granting of planning consent in relation to this, but I don't recall the details of that.

There were also other conditions to be attached to the consent which may have proved problematic.  It was far from a straight forward 'thumbs up and carry on' approval, where use of protected green space was the only concern.

[Yngwie]

2 hours ago, wilsywilsy said:

Deary me . That is quite a wild leap you are making here Mr Morrison. 

If you are not 100% with us, you are against us. Or something like that. 

Add Wilsy to the Councillor Oldham and Jeff Bezos ICT vendetta conspiracy. 

I note that you still haven’t denied involvement in it.

[Yngwie]

1 hour ago, dougal said:

The article in the courier gives an eye watering account what certain communities in Inverness think of ICT.

No, it gives the views of one person, an anonymous spokesperson.

[+DoofersDad]

2 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

No, it gives the views of one person, an anonymous spokesperson.

Which other people on their Community Council and 3 other Community Councils have signed up to and put those forward as representatives of the Communities they serve.  There are several democratically elected representatives who need to be able to justify their actions to the electorates they represent.

[Yngwie]

Of course, but I was referring to the quotes in the article rather than the slide the community councils had produced.

[STFU]

19 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Of course, but I was referring to the quotes in the article rather than the slide the community councils had produced.

[Satan]

57 minutes ago, STFU said:

Someone from Dingwall clutching at straws?

[Yngwie]

3 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

the Council have decided that all councillors with planning training and no disqualifying interest should make the decision

That’s interesting, I had initially thought that this vote was amongst all councillors.

What constitutes a disqualifying interest - having attended ICT matches? What about councillors who might have an affiliation with a rival club who would be beneficiaries from our demise, going part time or having to shut the youth set up?

[+DoofersDad]

1 hour ago, Yngwie said:

What constitutes a disqualifying interest - having attended ICT matches? What about councillors who might have an affiliation with a rival club who would be beneficiaries from our demise, going part time or having to shut the youth set up?

That's a good question but I don't know the answer.  It was one of the issues with the original vote.  Certainly shareholders and season ticket holders were seen as having an interest.  One would hope that all councillors representing Inverness wards would consider themselves as supporters of the City's largest football club even if only on the basis of the fact that it brings revenue into the area.  It would be a complete nonsense to disqualify councillors from voting just because they are supporters.  Indeed given the nature of the football club, even being a shareholder is not really a relevant issue as there will never be any financial return on the "investment".  Support for other clubs should not be an issue as it is often argued (but not by Charles) that having 2 senior teams in the area provides healthy competition.

 It seems that certain people in the Council want to prevent local Inverness Councillors from voting and then, in the next breath, complain that the lack of local Inverness councillors voting invalidates the vote!  

ICT V Highland Council.  The winner will be the one that scores the fewest own goals.

[Yngwie]

To what extent are councillors likely to vote as political blocks, as they normally do, or do they get a free vote on matters like this? 

It would be nice to think that the SNP and Greens, who form the government whose policy encourages approval of these schemes and is committed to net zero etc, will stick to their principles and not suddenly become NIMBY hypocrites. Likewise the other main parties are always falling over themselves to stress their green credentials.So it’ll be a walk in the park, right? If only…

[dougal]

18 minutes ago, DoofersDad said:

 One would hope that all councillors representing Inverness wards would consider themselves as supporters of the City's largest football club even if only on the basis of the fact that it brings revenue into the area. 

 

Good one Doofersdad I know I’ve had about six or seven pints now and I’m finding pretty much everything funny but that’s a belter

Dougal

[lightlamp2]

1 hour ago, Yngwie said:

To what extent are councillors likely to vote as political blocks, as they normally do, or do they get a free vote on matters like this? 

It would be nice to think that the SNP and Greens, who form the government whose policy encourages approval of these schemes and is committed to net zero etc, will stick to their principles and not suddenly become NIMBY hypocrites. Likewise the other main parties are always falling over themselves to stress their green credentials.So it’ll be a walk in the park, right? If only…

According to the courier article a few days ago. The councillors that voted to recall the decision belonged mainly to the SNP and Greens. Believe it was something like 14 SNP councillors and 3 out of 4 Green councillors.

[dougiedanger]

1 hour ago, Yngwie said:

To what extent are councillors likely to vote as political blocks, as they normally do, or do they get a free vote on matters like this? 

It would be nice to think that the SNP and Greens, who form the government whose policy encourages approval of these schemes and is committed to net zero etc, will stick to their principles and not suddenly become NIMBY hypocrites. Likewise the other main parties are always falling over themselves to stress their green credentials.So it’ll be a walk in the park, right? If only…

Oh aye, your guys only have 10 there.

[lightlamp2]

Anyone had any replies yet from Councillors? I've had two replies from SNP one's in Inverness. Both sound like they are against it naturally.

[Yngwie]

37 minutes ago, lightlamp2 said:

According to the courier article a few days ago. The councillors that voted to recall the decision belonged mainly to the SNP and Greens. Believe it was something like 14 SNP councillors and 3 out of 4 Green councillors.

Disappointing but not surprising. Hypocritical NIMBYs, as I feared. The bigger concern is that when it gets appealed to the Scottish Government, they will be very reluctant to overturn the decision and thereby discredit and humiliate their own politicians. We are in worse trouble than I previously thought.