I have reluctantly grown used to the wind turbines dotted across the Lammermuir horizon and have also been thankful for the height restrictions (42 metres) placed on turbine developments in the lowlands of our local agricultural landscape.

Imagine my surprise this last week to see a large-scale turbine being erected (see image, right) between Congalton and Drem with (I later discovered) a height of nearly 70 metres.

Interested in how this could have come about, I investigated our local planning portal, only to find that the development of this site has been rejected on two separate occasions, being refused due “to the harmful impact on the landscape”.

This application was eventually overturned after a lengthy and drawnout appeal by the applicant and even at this late stage the council stated “it considered it a prominent and intrusive feature”. I am of the opinion that now the wind turbine is up it is exactly that prominent and intrusive on our local landscape.

Let us remind ourselves that whatever the applicant may have said in the defence of the project to persuade the planners of their good intentions, it will have been basic economics that played a major part in the decision to erect such a large-scale turbine in the first place.

With a capital cost of about £750,000 the owner can expect to make profits in excess of £1.7 million over the 20-year life of the turbine – not a bad rate of return in today’s depressed economic environment.

Such a ‘landmark’ decision by our local planning department should have received wider public consultation and without doubt can be seen as a blot on the landscape by all who have to see it for the next 20 years, while its owners make large profits at our expense. Let us hope it does not set a precedent for similar proposals around the county.

W. T. Urbine North Berwick