The final legal battle over the future of Shetland’s planned 103 turbine Viking Energy wind farm has been provisionally set for December 18.
Anti-Viking campaign group Sustainable Shetland agreed unanimously at a meeting on Tuesday to go ahead with an appeal in London’s Supreme Court.
The decision by 50 of its 850 members who attended the meeting at Bixter public hall came a week after the group learned that they would be granted a protected costs order.
As a result Sustainable Shetland will only have to pay £5,000 of the other side’s court costs if they lose the case.
The legal wrangle began when Sustainable Shetland brought a judicial review against the Scottish government’s decision in April 2012 to grant consent for the wind farm, which is jointly-owned by Shetland Charitable Trust, Scottish Southern Energy and four local businessmen.
Last year the Court of Session upheld the judicial review, which was based on an alleged breach of the European Birds Directive.
The government appealed the decision and three judges in the Inner House of the Court of Session in Edinburgh overturned the original judgement to let the wind farm go ahead.
Sustainable Shetland’s chairman Frank Hay said December’s hearing in the highest court in the land would probably be the final stage in the legal battle.
“There may be some reference to Europe for clarification, but I think this will be the end of the road. This is the last chance saloon,” he said.