Interconnector

Here in the island, a storm has blown up after a location was revealed for the interconnector. The what? An interconnector is a posh word for a sub-sea electricity cable. As I have reported before, they are proposing to build THREE windfarms on Lewis. The electricity generated by these monstrosities has to be transported to the National Grid, and a sub-sea cable is the only way to do that. The place where they think this cable may dive under the billowy waves is the tiny hamlet of Gravir.

View from Gravir to the sea

I am purposefully also giving the Gaelic name: Grabhair. Indeed, people in the village are grabbing their hair to pull it out. They will be confronted with an electricity substation the size of 20 houses, lines of huge pylons marching down one of the more remote glens in Lewis (Glen Ourn) to bring the power generated from the windfarm in Eishken. As well as that from the windfarm in Park, across the valley. I know the area very well indeed, having spent 3 months there in the winter of 2004/5. Want to read about that? Go back to the very first entry in this blog and read from there. Don't go back manually, this is entry 2,410.


Returning to the here and now, as I have repeatedly written on here, southeast Lewis, the one remaining wilderness area in the island, stands to be desecrated and turned into an industrial zone. I know, nobody lives there. Apart from the 200 people of South Lochs (the district concerned), and nobody is bothered about them. And they appear to want the windfarm - do they? It is supposed to be the economic salvation of their backwater - or so the town fathers have decreed. But having 200 ft pylons by your front door, as well as a huge substation, emitting that continuous 50 Hz hum, well that changed the game a bit.

When I was in South Lochs, that winter two years ago, I had a magical time. I would spend days wandering amongst the lochs and low hills of the areas, exploring for hours on end, until the sunset put a stop to it. Many's the time I reached the end of the Gravir Glen road end just in time, at 3.30pm. I still had to walk 6 miles to return to my base in the even tinier village of Kershader. But I was alone in the wilderness, with only the moor, the lochs, the shrikes and grouse, the rain, the wind and the sun.

That will be lost if this plan for the interconnector goes ahead.
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