Communities in Argyll are working together to ensure they get maximum benefit from three proposed offshore windfarm sites which could bring up to £9billion of investment to the county.
Companies have been given permission to survey the sites off Tiree, Islay and Machrihanish.
And local energy trusts from each area have come together to form the body Argyll Renewables Communities (Arc).
George Dean, an Arc volunteer from Islay with a corporate background, gave a presentation to councillors of the Mid Argyll, Kintyre and Islay local area community planning group at Campbeltown yesterday.
Mr Dean said: “These projects are enormous. These are projects that are beyond all of our understanding in terms of scale. If all of these projects happen it will be between £7-9billion capital investment, which would build the new Forth Road Bridge two times over.
“If only 20% of the maintenance for the Islay project is based on Islay it will add up to 20% to the gross value of Islay’s economy.
“We are working together to share ideas about offshore windfarms in these places to maximise the benefits and minimise whatever the negative impacts might be. We want to be active to see if we can influence developers and regulators for the benefit of all.”
Arc has told the Scottish Government that the decision-making process for the offshore windfarms should consider the onshore impacts on local communities.
Mr Dean said: “You don’t want to have a windfarm on your doorstep out of which you get no economic benefit. We have to persuade planning and licensing authorities that they should take these matters into account.
“We have to look at what it means in terms of economic opportunities locally. How many jobs is it going to create? What sort of jobs will it create? How do we get developers and the Scottish Government to invest in these communities to ensure they are prepared for economic development? We want to explain to developers it will be better for them to do that. We want them to be more open about what they are going to do, to be more specific about what skills they are going to need.”
Islay-based councillor Robin Currie said he wanted to ensure the communities got as many benefits as possible out of the situation and asked that the developments be made a standing issue on the area committee agenda.
This was agreed with Kintyre-based councillor Rory Colville saying: “This is possibly the most important issue that will affect Argyll in the next 100 years.”