Borders village ‘heart ripped out’ by battery site plans

Approval for battery energy storage facilities is decided, depending on their size, by either the local authority or the Scottish government’s Energy Consents Unit (ECU).

The Scottish government says that impacts on communities are a consideration under their Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4).

They also state that cumulative impacts are also taken into account as part of the decision-making process.

The spokesperson added: “All applications are subject to site specific assessments.”

Scottish Borders Council says that all parties have their opportunity to comment directly on applications which either go before them, if below 50MW, or to the ECU.

A spokesman said: “The council’s remit is to assess the planning implications of the proposal – in other words, to assess the proposal against development plan policies and make any technical assessments that it has responsibility for, such as landscape and visual impacts, access, noise and the effect of these on residential amenity.”