Power giant SSE has been told to dismantle a huge wall of tyres at its substation by Beauly.
The long and winding construction, which stretches about 300 yards, was installed at the firm’s controversial Wester Balblair facility.
It was designed to separate traffic heading to a nearby quarry.
But the Press and Journal has learned that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has told the company to take it down.
Work is expected to get underway shortly to replace the partition on the access road.
A spokesman for Sepa said: “Following discussions with SSE in February this year, it was agreed that these tyre bales would be removed as the bales were not fit for purpose as a barrier.
“SSE proposed to have the tyre bales removed to a suitably licenced site and, given that the tyres pose no negligible environmental risk, we are satisfied by these arrangements.”
The cost of the removal work was unknown last night.
The station is run by SHE Transmission, an arm of SSE.
A spokeswoman for the firm said last night: “Sepa have notified SHE Transmission that the use of tyres for this purpose does not meet the relevant waste regulations.
“As a result, we have worked closely with Sepa and agreed to remove the tyre wall partition which will be replaced with an alternative barrier.”
She added: “The costs are still to be finalised.”
Last year, SSE was ordered to tackle a noise problem at the substation, which was built as part of the controversial Beauly to Denny power line upgrade.
Highland Council said it had received a number of complaints about a low frequency humming sound from the site near Beauly, and had served SSE with a noise abatement notice.