Fife - Ballingry couple feel 'hounded out' by energy developments

Richard Mears, 52, lives close to the planned Westfield Convertor Station, which will make electricity safe for transmission down south via an underground and subsea cable.

It's to be the starting point of Eastern Green Link 4 (EGL4), a project jointly delivered by SP Energy Networks and National Grid Electricity Transmission. Once complete, it will move enough watts between Fife and Norfolk to power around two million homes.

Work in the area will also involve construction of a new substation with over a quarter more capacity than an existing one.

Mr Mears said: “We now feel like we're being hounded out of the area we love.

“I don’t see why we should lose value on our property, whilst they can build in every single field. We are now going to be surrounded so that we’re not in the countryside, we’re in an industrial estate. That’s not why we moved out here.

“All this work around us has got nothing to do with Scotland whatsoever, it’s all about pound notes, getting electricity to Norfolk.”

There are further plans that aren’t related to EGL4 for a field next to the cottage to be turned into a battery energy storage system by Fife Power, a subsidiary of Cambridge Power.

And a £220 million energy recovery facility developed by Brockwell Energy Services, opened in the area in Summer 2025, converting non-recyclable waste into electricity and heat.

Mr Mears and his partner Jayne Coulson, 56, moved into their property back in 2016, and the following year Fife Council identified the Westfield site in its local development plan (LDP) as allocated for green energy and related development.

The homeowners are upset by what they see as unfairness in the planning system, after pre-application advice from the local authority said that it would be considered against the same LDP to build another house just north of theirs.

“Our stepdaughter lived in Glenrothes, and she’s been on the housing list for Fife Council for ten years”, said Mr Mears. “She needed a bigger house because she’s got four kids. They kept telling her she didn’t have enough points to get one on the council.

“Eventually we were like ‘this is a joke, we’ve got three acres, why don’t we put in a planning application to build one here she can move into?’”

A letter from the relevant department said that deviating from the LDP was “unlikely to be justified” given that it was “not required to support a rural business, nor is the site within an existing cluster”.

Mr Mears went on: “We moved out here to be in the country and were told that’s why we couldn’t build the house, but all of a sudden now all of the fields are getting turned into solar panels, battery backup, or making the substation larger.”

He added that his household and horse has been disturbed by “constant noise”, and that the only way he can see forward is taking legal action.

Fife Council's head of planning, Pam Ewen said: “The Scottish planning system considers each planning application on its own merits, with each application fully assessed against policy and other material considerations.

“There has been an increase in energy proposals and very often these are within locations out with built up areas.”

EGL4 is one of four similar projects that will significantly boost the electricity network’s capabilities between Scotland and England.

A spokesperson for EGL4 said: “The EGL4 project will increase Britain’s capacity to move green power around the country, reducing constraints by billions of pounds and ensuring not a watt goes to waste.

“It will also bring major benefits to communities across the country, strengthening Britain’s energy security with clean, renewable electricity moving in both directions between Scotland and England, powering between 1.5 and two million homes, a significant contribution to the UK’s transition to greener, more secure home-grown energy.

“For Fife residents, the project represents not only a key step in supporting national net‑zero goals but also a substantial local infrastructure investment bringing jobs and supply chain benefits.

“The new converter station development forms part of wider grid upgrades that are much-needed locally and will help unlock more renewable energy, bring down bills in the longer term and ensure the local electricity network is resilient for decades ahead.”