Hi all,
May I offer a word of caution.
But first, the preferred corridor goes right over the airfield, so yes, you should make some comments. This is, of course, the reason for the consultation and the preferred corridor map.
Now the caution:
You talk about a 3km radius safeguarding zone. At Strathaven, we had a professional safeguarding chart drawn up - see the bottom left of the four pictures at
Wind Energy Development - to CAA guidelines. The traditional criteria for a runway our length - about the same as Insch - is 2km radius, rather than 3km.
(You will see that, when it comes to wind farm development, we have derived a calculation which means our safeguarding zone for wind turbines is a good bit larger, depending on their size).
You might also notice that a high-tension pylon line passes about 2.5km to our west. This has been here for many decades, while Strathaven was used for gliding and for microlights. We have never reported any problems with it. As a result, the company building a new power line will be able to point to Strathaven as a similar operation and say: "they have never reported a problem".
So the caution is: don't be the boy crying wolf. Sit down with these folk and the council planners, and your MSP (since it is a major infrastructure project) make your case in a sensible manner. Point to other airfields and their experiences.
Do not say it will make your airfield unsafe (because if they build, then you will have to close, since you are unsafe. Or you were fibbing!) Instead say it will put constraints on operations, and those constraints may have an impact on viability.
If they refuse to listen, then we start bombarding. But - unless I have read wrong - this is still the time of discussion in smoke-filled rooms!
Feel free to contact me for any more information.