A PLAN to build a £53 million wind farm on a Highland estate took a step forwards yesterday when councillors ignored officials’ advice and backed the project.

British-Dutch developer Infinergy/LZN had applied to erect 22 wind turbines, up to 410ft high, with a capacity of 66 megawatts (MW) on the Lochluichart Estate, near Garve in Wester Ross.

The developer had scaled down the original proposal, which was for 43 turbines with a capacity of up to 129MW, and indicated it was willing to reduce the number of towers further to 17.

Highland Council received more than 800 letters of support for the plan to build on land owned by Hamish Leslie Melville, a former chairman of the National Trust for Scotland, backing the local generation of green power and the creation of jobs.

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