The Viking wind farm will proceed on the Shetland islands after the Supreme Court dismissed a legal objection from a local campaign group.
A panel of justices on 9 February rejected Sustainable Shetland’s contention that the project, which is expected to use 3.6MW turbines, failed to comply with an EU directive protecting indigenous birdlife.
The likely impact on the whimbrel, a wading species, was agreed not be "significant" and it was concluded that there was "no serious doubt" that the ruling had been taken into account.
Initially greenlit by the Scottish Government in 2012, the wind farm project, which is a joint venture between the Shetland community and the utility company SSE, ran into difficulty a year later when the Court of Session overruled the permission, citing a possible threat to the whimbrel’s habitat, and the (now rectified) lack of an electricity-generating licence.
A spokesman for Sustainable Shetland was "very disappointed" to hear that the appeal had been unsuccessful and stressed that his group’s opposition to the wind farm remained undiminished.
