ScottishPower Renewables has consent for a wind, solar and battery project near Mey after a public inquiry. But in north east Caithness, the decision sits inside a much older landscape.
North east Caithness has never been empty country.
The land around Mey and Canisbay carries a long memory: prehistoric remains, coastal farms, old parish life, views across the Pentland Firth, and the nearby Castle of Mey, one of the most recognisable historic places in Scotland’s far north. It is a landscape shaped by weather and its distance from the rest of Scotland, but also by inheritance. Now it is also being asked to carry another layer of national infrastructure.
ScottishPower Renewables’ Hollandmey Renewable Energy Development, around 8 kilometres south west of John o’ Groats and 16 kilometres east of Thurso, received consent from Scottish Ministers on 16 September 2024 after a Public Local Inquiry held in October 2023. The project consists of 10 wind turbines up to 149.9 metres to blade tip, around 50 megawatts of wind generation, about 15 megawatts of ground mounted solar arrays and approximately 15 megawatts of battery energy storage.
That description is technical. The argument around it was not.
Hollandmey became one of those planning cases in which Scotland’s clean energy ambition met the particular weight of a place. The project was not refused by ministers. It was not abandoned. But neither was it waved through as a minor rural development. Highland Council raised an objection after the planning officer’s report was circulated to members in November 2022, and a hearing session later took place in October 2023 covering policy, landscape and visual impact before Scottish Ministers made the final decision.
That route matters. It shows that the dispute was not merely local grumbling. The issues were serious enough to move into the machinery of national consent.
ScottishPower’s own project history records that the application was submitted in November 2021, referred to the Scottish Government’s Planning and Environmental Appeals Division in March 2023, and considered at a Public Local Inquiry covering landscape and visual impact assessment, energy policy and planning conditions. The development was consented in September 2024.
The decision leaves a more immediate question. When will construction begin?
No confirmed construction start date appears to have been publicly announced. The project documents and public material support the conclusion that Hollandmey has moved beyond consent and remains in the pre construction phase, but a declared start date should not be inferred without a formal company or government statement. Global Energy Monitor describes Hollandmey as pre construction, while the consent records confirm the approval but not a build date.
The scheme itself is part of a wider shift in Scottish renewable development. It is not only a wind farm. By combining turbines, solar generation and battery storage, Hollandmey reflects the direction in which energy projects are moving: generation, storage and grid management increasingly treated as parts of one system rather than separate pieces. The Energy Consents Unit describes the proposal as the construction and operation of a renewable energy development with wind, solar and battery storage at Hollandmey in Caithness.
For its supporters, that combination strengthens the case. Wind output varies, solar output varies, and storage can help manage power across time. In a country trying to reduce emissions and expand clean generation, such developments are presented as practical infrastructure rather than symbolic gestures.
For its opponents and concerned neighbours, the same facts can look different. Ten turbines of nearly 150 metres are not discreet. Solar arrays, access tracks, borrow pits, battery storage, masts and associated infrastructure alter land in ways that do not vanish behind planning language. Highland Council’s major development update described the proposal as including turbines, ground mounted solar arrays, battery energy storage, access tracks, a permanent met mast and LiDAR, temporary met masts, borrow pits and associated infrastructure.
The heart of the matter is not whether Scotland needs renewable energy. It does. The question is how that need is carried by individual communities, especially in places where landscape is not merely scenery but part of identity, and livelihood.
The Castle of Mey gives the case its sharpest historical edge. The castle, formerly known as Barrogill Castle, is associated with the Sinclair family and later became closely identified with Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who acquired it in 1952 and restored it as a private Scottish home. It remains one of the north coast’s most recognisable historic and visitor landmarks. The project’s own published materials include additional information relating to Castle of Mey mitigation planting, which is itself evidence that the castle’s setting formed part of the planning conversation.
The presence of the castle does not give the landscape a veto over all change. Scotland is not a museum, and Caithness is not a backdrop for sentiment. People live there, work there, farm there, travel there and need economic opportunity there. But heritage does require seriousness. It asks that development be judged not only by megawatts and carbon arguments, but by what is being placed into public view and what will remain there long after the consent notice has yellowed.
That is the uncomfortable dignity of the Hollandmey case. Both sides of the argument can make claims that deserve attention.
Scotland needs clean energy. The Highlands need investment. The electricity system needs more renewable generation and storage. At the same time, rural communities are entitled to ask whether they are becoming the visible working floor of a transition whose benefits are often described nationally while its physical consequences are experienced locally.
Hollandmey also sits within a broader Caithness pattern. The far north has seen repeated energy proposals, from wind farms and grid works to battery storage and other associated infrastructure. A single project may be assessed on its own merits, but residents experience cumulative change in the round: one skyline, one road network, one sense of place, one community meeting after another.
That is why the public inquiry process was important. It gave formal space to issues that cannot be resolved by saying renewable energy is good and therefore every proposal must be good in the same way. The planning system had to consider policy, landscape and visual impact, and ministers ultimately granted consent.
Approval, however, does not end the public interest.
The next questions are practical. When will construction begin? How will traffic be managed? How will conditions be enforced? How will local communities be kept informed? What visible mitigation will take place? What benefits will be felt locally? What will happen if construction assumptions slip?
Those questions should be answered plainly before heavy work begins. Hollandmey now belongs to the next chapter of Scotland’s energy transition. It is a consented project, not a speculative one. It has survived objection, inquiry and ministerial scrutiny. It has also left behind a record showing that the concerns around landscape, visual effect and local impact were real enough to require formal examination.
That distinction should be respected.
For ScottishPower Renewables, Hollandmey is part of a modern renewable portfolio, combining wind, solar and storage in a region with strong natural energy resources. For Caithness, it is something more immediate: a development close to homes, heritage, roads, fields and views that people know not as an energy map, but as the place where they live.
The history of north east Caithness does not make renewable development impossible. But it does make care unavoidable.
The land near Mey has carried brochs, castles, farms, churches, coastal weather and royal memory. It may now carry turbines, panels and battery systems as well. The decision has been made. The consent has been granted. The question now is whether the next stage will be handled with the candour, restraint and local respect that such a landscape deserves.
Because in Caithness, the future is not being built on blank ground. It is being built on a place that already has a story – one that will continue to belong to the people of Caithness.
