Brendan O’Hara – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Brendan O’Hara on 2015-11-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department has taken to communicate to local authorities and developers of onshore wind renewables projects the effect of the time taken to upgrade air defence radars at RRH Benbecula and RRH Buchan.

Mr Philip Dunne

In respect of the upgrade of the Air Defence radar at Remote Radar Head (RRH) Buchan, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is in contact with the developers who proposed the upgrade as mitigation for their wind farm proposal.

At RRH Benbecula, the MOD is in contact with the Western Isles Council and developers via the Council’s Working Group. In addition, the MOD provided an Air Defence update at the Aviation Management Board meeting on 5 November 2015 at which Scottish Government, the wind industry and RenewableUK representatives were present.

The MOD continues to undertake full technical and operational assessments of all site specific Air Defence radar mitigation proposals, including those to the upgraded TPS-77 radar systems at RRH Benbecula and RRH Buchan. It remains the responsibility of developers to submit site specific mitigation proposals. The MOD will determine whether the impact upon the radar is of a permissible level.