The proposal consists of 6 x 200m wind turbines, almost 70 hectares (say 100 football pitches (1) ) of reflective solar panels, a battery storage system made of large containers holding batteries, an onsite substation and temporary construction compounds. 

Are you aware:·       

Of the scale of the turbines?
• At 200m (656 ft) they would be as tall as any onshore turbines in the country (2),
• They would have blades of 75m in length (3),
• They are 2.5 times taller than the Black Hill turbines on the north side of Hardens Hill which are ‘only’ 78m (256ft) tall (4). Lees Hill turbines will be unconstrained by the natural landscape as the smaller turbines are.
  
That they are so tall they will need to be illuminated at night?
• And these lights, (located on the turbine hub) will flicker as the blades pass in front of them (5).
      
How far away these turbines will be seen (6)?
• To the East; all the way to Berwick- upon- Tweed, Holy Island and well into the sea beyond, unprecedented for onshore turbines,
• To the South; across the Tweed, well down into Northumberland, as far as Wooler,
• To the West, to Westruther and beyond, 
• To the North, at least to the Lothian Edge,
• Due to their location and size these turbines will dominate the western skyline of Duns.
     
That the battery storage can only supply the grid for a very short period of time (7)?
• There are many additional battery storage proposals for the Eccles area, some already passed by the Council.
      
That this location is unique in that the ground infrastructure, solar panels and battery storage will ALL be visible from the public roads (8)?       

Of the volume of traffic through Westruther (9)?
• 2,000+ HGV vehicles per month for a year. Say 7-day, 8 hour working, that’s an extra HGV every 7 minutes through the village.·      

That there are already £m’s of community funds available locally from existing wind farm developments (10)?
• If approved community funds from this project are many years away, Fred Olsen say operational in 2030 at best (11).      

Of the risks to Health and Safety?
• There is a major gas pipeline running through the middle of the site (12),
• 200m turbines have only just begun to operate onshore, but  research suggests there are risks:  
   to the health of people living some distance away from wind turbines due to infrasound/vibration (13),  
   to animal health from these same issues (14),  
   to component failure because of their very size (15).
• From the fire risk of the batteries. Electric batteries are prone to spontaneous combustion, and such fires leak toxic chemicals into the air/ground and are nearly impossible to put out - they are left to burn themselves out (16), consider this additional pressure on our dedicated volunteer firemen in Duns.·      

Of the risk to birds in flight?
• With blades of 75m long the tips could be travelling at 200 miles per hour (17), with a swept area of  three football pitches(18). With six of these turbines in such close proximity there will undoubtedly be many bird deaths.
      
That many successful applications, once completed, are followed by requests to extend their footprint?
• Crystal Rig developed by Fred Olsen was first operational in 2003, with 25 turbines and has since been extended four times. By 2025 it will be operating 102 turbines. After 20 years they are now working on repowering the first phase with larger turbines and planning to add acres of solar panels (19).
• This installation is on Duns’ doorstep, how close is too close to Duns?      

That Scotland does not need any more windfarms to meet its target of 20GW by 2030?
• Based on the latest Scottish Government figures the 2030 onshore wind generation target is well on track without any new onshore windfarms (20).
• In 2023 windfarm operators across the UK were paid more than £300m not to generate, as the power was not required by the grid (i.e. constraint payments) (21).  £275m (90%) of this was paid to Scottish wind farms (22). In total wind farms have now been paid £1.6bn not to generate electricity. Fallago Rig has received more than £60 million (23) and Crystal Rig £26 million of this total (24),
• It will be decades before the grid infrastructure is in place for Scotland to export this (increasing) excess of power when the wind blows (25).
• Scotland has no strategy to supply the country’s needs when the wind doesn’t blow;, battery storage lasts a few hours at most and can never fill this gap (26).

That’s 11 reasons to consider whether you think Lees Hill (i.e. Hardens Hill) is an appropriate location for such a development.