A planning application that responds to the natural environment

Ourack Wind Farm

Offering great potential to contribute to the decarbonisation agenda, the Ourack Wind Farm project sits in the Drynachan, Lochindorb, and Dava Moors special landscape area (SLA) just north of the Cairngorms National Park. This means that although there was a lot of promise for renewable electricity, the project also had to be conscious of natural landscape impacts. That’s when integrated energy company Vattenfall brought us in to support.

Working with landscape consultants at Wood Group, we established that the site should be scaled back from an early, 50-turbine design to only 18 turbines. This reduction will help maintain the integrity of the SLA and minimise impact on Cairngorms National Park, while still maximising renewable energy generation.

In tandem with the landscape-led design process, we worked with technical teams to reduce environmental impacts on peatland habitats, watercourses, deep peat, topography, residential amenity, and archaeological interests.

We managed the planning process, prepared the application and community development strategy, and co-ordinated the project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA). Local communities were at the centre of the design process, and following extensive consultation and an iterative design process, we helped Vattenfall develop a project that can be built, run, and decommissioned as sustainably as possible.