As part of our celebrations of our centenary, Kat is writing articles on APRS history for magazines of other Scottish organisations who work on the issues we have worked on over the past 100 years. The first looks back at one of APRS’s historic campaigns, that of the hydro-electric schemes of the 1930s and 40s, to see what this can bring to the debates about energy in the landscape today. It was published in the Winter 2025 edition of Scottish Mountaineer.

In the 1930s Scotland was undergoing an energy revolution. Hydro-electric power had come at scale to the Highland glens and huge changes to the landscape and ways of life were afoot. We now find ourselves in the midst of a second energy revolution with Scotland, again, seen as the powerhouse of a nation. Scotland has plentiful renewable energy, especially wind, and is already a net exporter of energy. We also have a whole new set of hydro plants in planning to act as pump storage stations.  

The story of APRS’s campaigns from the 1930s and 40s are extremely prescient for debates over energy infrastructure in the landscape today. It is worth pointing out at the start of this article that APRS’s “attitude towards hydro-electric developments in the Highlands is not negative, but essentially constructive” (1937 Annual Report) and that our position laid out in those early years remains more or less the same today. As was put succinctly in our 1934 Annual Report: “The attitude of the Association towards electrical development is governed by national necessities… But the Association asks that beauty in nature shall be regarded as itself a great national asset, to be duly appraised as such.” 

This history of Hydroelectric Power in Scotland roughly splits into two parts: before and after the 1943 legislation nationalising hydro power. The third part of the story comes after 1990 when the North of Scotland Hydro Board, created by that 1943 Act, was abolished by Margaret Thatcher’s government during the privatisation of the UK’s public utilities. 

The early schemes

Our very first annual report in 1929 detailed worries about the wanton destruction of important landscapes that were taking place in the rush for hydro, with an often scant justification. They called attention to “the remarkable Falls of Glomach, which are threatened with virtual obliteration in the plans of the Grampian Scheme. There is the less reason for such a vandalism, as the catchment area concerned appears to be immaterial to the success of this scheme as a whole.” 

Those first schemes were characterised by what seemed like a rush to develop and no strategic oversight. Private companies would be competing to use the resources of a river before others did. APRS described the impacts on the landscape of these early hydro schemes in a letter to the Government in 1936 lamenting that the only reason the Falls of Clyde scheme went ahead was due to a threat of competition from another proposed scheme in the same catchment.

APRS also noted that due process was sometimes not followed and, in 1934, noted the detrimental impact of the Rannoch scheme on the landscape was because no statutory amenity committee had been set up to scrutinise the scheme.

The campaign against the Caledonian Scheme

Much of the late thirties and early 40s were taken up with opposition to the Caledonian Power scheme which would have given over the water of many of the Glens north of the Great Glen to a private company, diverting flow to the west for a generating station at Kinloch Hourn. This wholesale privatisation of water from entire catchments was also, unsurprisingly, fiercely opposed by Inverness who would have lost much of the river flow through the town. 

It was  not only the impacts on the landscape that were a concern for APRS, concerns about the impacts on local people dominated our early campaigns against the hydro schemes. APRS was particularly concerned that the purported benefits did not justify the impacts that locals would suffer and an APRS petition against the scheme “protested against the dispossession of crofters and the serious injury to the amenities of the district … and it also protested against the giving of the proposed powers over a large area of country to a commercial company, and submitted that no public or local advantage would result therefrom which would justify the injury which would be done to the district.”

In 1938 APRS wrote a report on living conditions and development in the Highlands, which was commissioned by Ministers which raised concerns of the water in local catchments being taken for private benefit and concluded that “there should be reservation of ample power for other local industries as described above, and for domestic uses existing or possible.” This same report proposed “that all the water power in the Highland area that is not already in use or authorised for use should be put under the control of the proposed Commission or Commissioner”. This Commission would be charged with balancing the benefits to the local people with the benefits of creation of power.  And in 1943 the Hydro Electric Development (Scotland) Act did just this, nationalising the development of hydro-electric power across Scotland to deliver an ambitious social vision – to deliver power and social improvement to the people of the Highlands.

The later power schemes

By the mid 1940s some of the schemes coming forward were, in APRS’s view, more acceptable. In 1945 many projects were brought forward and APRS supported the Morar, Lochalsh, and Gairloch projects, but opposed projects at Loch Sloy, Fannich and Tummel-Garry. Lord Haddington, at that time President of APRS, gave a speech in the Lords in April 1945 criticizing the Hydro Board for destroying national treasures such as the Falls of Tummel. He made an impassioned case for preserving Falls of Bruar which were, at that time, proposed as part of the Tummel-Garry scheme.

APRS campaigning achieved changes to the Fannich scheme and our 1947 report notes that there was great optimism for a new Glen Affric scheme, which APRS had been involved in. By 1948 APRS was seen as a key stakeholder in planning hydro schemes. Several new hydro projects were submitted that year, none of which the APRS opposed, and the Annual report noted that “the good relations which were earlier established with the [Hydro] Board have borne fruit, and that the Board is doing its utmost to prevent more alteration of the countryside than is absolutely necessary.”

This theme of cooperation and improved scheme proposals continued and in 1953 APRS representatives attended the opening of the Affric scheme, where they were ‘very impressed by the efforts taken to preserve the natural beauty of the region’. 

Parallels with our work today

There are some obvious parallels with today. Over the past decade, a moratorium on wind turbines in England means that Scotland has been doing the heavy lifting on decarbonising the UK’s energy system. Scotland is already a net exporter of renewable energy and the power grids being built and upgraded across Scotland will take the estimated doubling of energy generated in Scotland by 2035 via huge connectors in Hunterston and Peterhead, powering the Midlands, London and beyond.

As we saw 80 years ago, there is also a lack of a strategic approach. Private companies are in competition, with benefits flowing to those who get permission first, rather than those developments that are most beneficial, effective or well located. What has happened in onshore wind is now happening in battery storage. Industry modelling suggests that Scotland will need around 6 GW of battery storage by 2030 and up to 7.6GW by 2045[1] but by April 2024 more than 24GW was in the planning system (2.5GW operational, or under construction, 11.4GW consented awaiting construction and 10.5GW awaiting decision)[2] and more coming in weekly.

We believe that it is more important than ever that communities and organisations representing the public interest, such as APRS and Mountaineering Scotland, are consulted and listened to at an early stage in planning. But even more than this, we need a strategic approach to land use planning that will ensure that developments are in the right place and at the right scale, that mitigations are in place for impacts, and that benefits flow to communities and to the public purse.

As in 1934, again we “ask that beauty in nature shall be regarded as itself a great national asset, to be duly appraised as such.” Renewable energy is one of Scotland’s key natural resources and we should be able to see the benefit from it, without destroying another of our most valuable natural resources, our landscapes.

By Kat Jones Director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS)

[1] from an FoI to Scottish Gov, Oct 2024: Meeting Net Zero in 2050 Battery Energy Storage System (BESS): EIR release https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202400433145/

[2] https://www.gov.scot/publications/energy-statistics-for-scotland-q2-2024/pages/renewable-electricity-pipeline/

Before and after photos from a booklet published by APRS in 1936

The booklet ‘Scotland’s Natural Beauty as affected by Water Power’ was published by APRS for MPs as part of their bid to raise awareness of the dire consequences of the early hydro schemes of the landscapes and ecology, where whole rivers stopped flowing. In those early schemes there was no allowance made for flow in the rivers to continue, or for towns and villages downstream to have access to the water resources in their catchments.

Photo caption above: Before and after shots of Bonnington, Falls of Clyde showing the almost complete elimination of flow of the River Clyde down the falls.

Photo caption above: Before and after shots of Stonebyres, Falls of Clyde also showing the lack of flow of the River Clyde down the falls.

Photo caption: The River Treig photographed before and after the Grampian scheme was in operation.