Concern that the 'Beauly buzz' has not been fixed
WORK to silence the “Beauly Buzz” at the Wester Balblair sub-station has not been a complete success, community leaders claim.
Energy giant Scottish and Southern Energy has spent £2.5 million in recent months, installing acoustic screens at the sub-station after being served with a noise abatement notice.
But although residents have noticed some improvements since the work finished in November, they say the noise remains. There are also concerns that with more high-voltage lines planned for Wester Balblair, the problem will be exacerbated.
Monitoring is still being carried out by SSE and Highland Council, which will review the results in the new year.
Complaints about the noise — caused by new equipment installed as part of the controversial upgrade of the 137-mile Beauly to Denny power line — first surfaced almost 18 months ago. Residents said the continuous humming was disturbing their sleep and stopping them sitting in their gardens.
In February, the council issued a noise abatement notice giving SSE six months to deal with the problem, although it was subsequently put on hold to give them more time to remedy the issue.
Steve Byford, chairman of Kilmorack Community Council, said although work finished on 21st November, some people felt the noise was as loud as ever.
“It has made a difference to some but it has not completely eradicated the noise, which is a disappointment,” he said.
“We have asked for clarification from SSE as to why the noise can be heard from the sub-station when the work has been completed.”
Mr Byford said he had noticed an improvement at his home but the community council had now been informed of another complaint about noise from a resident in the Belladrum area.
He said that while the mitigation work was being carried out, an SCV transformer at the sub-station was turned off for two weeks.
“It was great — there was no noise at all,” he said. “These transformers are known to be noisy. In Scandinavia, they completely enclose them in acoustic buildings.
“In Wester Balblair, they are not put in any building, they are just in the open air. To me, it just shows complete disregard to the community.”
SSE said the initial results of noise monitoring carried out by its consultants and Highland Council indicated a “significant reduction” in operational noise.
“We are now undertaking longer-term monitoring to assess the effectiveness of the recently completed mitigation measures installed in the sub-station,” a spokesman said.
“The measures have been specially engineered to reduce operational noise levels to an agreed limit as identified by Highland Council’s environmental health department.
“On completion of the monitoring, the data will be assessed by us and Highland Council. It would be inappropriate for us to speculate about the results of the monitoring ahead of its completion.”
A Highland Council spokeswoman said that until the review had taken place, the local authority could not say yet whether SSE was now complying with the noise abatement notice.
Before work began to upgrade the Beauly–Denny line, there were widespread calls for the sub-station to be relocated away from homes to minimise the impact.
