The Scottish Wildlife Trust is extremely concerned to hear that consent has been given to Berwick Bank Offshore Wind Farm, which will be one of the world’s largest such developments, sited in an internationally important area for seabirds. As highlighted in a joint letter led by RSPB Scotland, with the Scottish Wildlife Trust and other partners, this decision could put other developments at risk, due to the cumulative impacts of a mega offshore windfarm such as Berwick Bank. Moving towards net zero and growing the green economy is vitally important, but this shouldn’t come at a cost to nature’s resilience with developments like this that are in entirely the wrong place.

The Scottish Government could have chosen to pursue other options which could have collectively increased Scotland’s wind energy capacity by 30GW, providing enough energy for over 26million homes and moving us towards our net zero goals without compromising biodiversity. We do not understand why this easy win-win for climate and nature wasn’t taken. We will be watching closely for the detail of the developer’s seabird compensation plan but are concerned that it will not be enough to outweigh the hugely detrimental effects of this development on our already struggling seabirds. 

The Scottish Wildlife Trust has strong links to the Berwick bank area, with a large membership base, a snorkel trail, and long partnerships with local organisations such as Berwickshire Marine Reserve.